


Children of Promise

by OneMoreAltmer



Series: Dragon Age: Philomene Surana [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, Exorcisms, F/M, Gangbang, M/M kissing, Torture, Vaginal Sex, cuteness in trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 05:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 68,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14763654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneMoreAltmer/pseuds/OneMoreAltmer
Summary: Philomene Surana was taken from a dying Dalish clan at the age of five and brought to the Tower. Her unique perspective on life and her place in the world charms her friends and bewilders her enemies. Will it be enough to protect Alistair from both death and being made a king?





	1. Children of Promise

            _This time I have found them still celebrating the recent birth of a child, an especially cherished event for the Dalish as their birth rates continue to drop.  Enadrache’s band have a fondness for particularly unpronounceable names:  because the girl’s rings vaguely Orlesian to my untrained (by their standards) ear, they consent for me to refer to her as Philoméne.  She is the daughter of a hunter and a tale-spinner, the latter being Enadrache’s own maternal cousin._

_On the ninth night after the birth, the infant is placed in a shield made of ironwood, and fortunes are cast for her.  This is followed by revels.  Enadrache barred me from the private part of the ceremony as an outsider, but was willing to tell me that the baby’s luck is strong.         – Varsen_

            Philoméne reverently laid the parchment in its box with the others and pulled shut the painted lid.  Varsen’s series of notes on his studies of her tribe were all she had or even remembered of that life, and ever since First Enchanter Irving had given them to her on her fourteenth birthday, she had kept them as something like a sacred relic.

            Her luck was strong.  She would just keep telling herself that until the Harrowing was over.

            Cullen was virtually falling all over himself when she came out of her dormitory to go to her test.  Her big, strong Templar – not quite as scary to her as the others were, even though he towered over her just as much if not more.  Something in the way he blushed at her, probably.  She felt less of that intimidating awareness that his real function was not to keep danger out, but to keep her _in_.

 

*

 

            “Alistair.”  It was always a statement, never a question.  The young Warden turned to regard his mentor, the hero who had saved him from a life of useless boredom.  Always remarkable, how every sound or gesture of Duncan’s seemed able to carry the whole weight of his importance to the world and to his followers.

            And yet until his name was called, he’d been watching birds.  “Yes, Duncan?”

            “You will rendezvous with me in Ostagar.  I want you to go directly and start making sure suitable provision is made for the Wardens.”

            “I won’t be going with you?”  He frowned a little.  They’d seldom parted company since Alistair’s Joining.  Even Duncan was a bit protective of him, kept him a bit close to hand compared to the others.

            “No.  I will be taking a less direct route.  There is one more prospective recruit I wanted to visit on the way.  We will need everyone we can find in time.”

            “Ooh, I’ve always been curious about the recruiting part.  How do you choose people?”

            “Not this time, Alistair.  If all goes well, you will meet the recruits in Ostagar, and there will be time for you and I to explore these subjects after the Joining and the battle.”

            Alistair hung his head.  “All right.”

            Duncan put a hand on the young man’s shoulder.  “There will be a lot of important people there.  Not all of them know exactly who you are, but they _will_ all know that you represent the Wardens.  Do try to behave accordingly.”

            “Oh, good, protocol.  That’s really where I excel, isn’t it?  Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I just tucked myself under a rock someplace until you get there?”

            “You have to learn to do this.”

            He sighed.  “I know.  I’m going.”

 

*

 

_The tribe is further north than I expected:  Enadrache explains that they have swung wide of an area recently contested by human explorers.  Relations with the_ shemlen _do not improve with time, and even as a city elf I sometimes have difficulty gaining access to the depth of information I come seeking._

_This is a fortuitous visit for my purposes, though, because the girl Philoméne, now four years old, is reportedly showing the first glimmers of magical talent.  At this age!  In Ferelden we rarely catch it so early; here it is considered quite promising, but apparently not unique.  Enadrache says that the spirits are communicative to and about her, and that she is especially fascinated by wind and weather.  One does, of course, expect Dalish talent to manifest in elemental ways more often than not.  The negotiations for the child to apprentice to Enadrache are already being made.  I will be eager to visit again and see what I can learn about the early stages of their training process.   – Varsen_

            “This is a terrible idea, Jowan.”

            “Please, Philoméne.  It’s the only thing I’ve been able to think of, and I’m running out of time!”

            “If we’re caught I go down in flames with you.  You realize that, right?  You’re involving me very actively, here.”

            “I wouldn’t ask if there was an alternative.  You’re the only one I can trust with this.”

            True enough, she supposed:  they’d been best friends since he’d arrived at age eight, while she was seven.  He’d never thought twice about helping her, after all – the poor, whiny, ill-starred thing.  Study came easily to him but power did not:  and since she was rather the opposite, they’d made a natural team.  It really was awful that they would force him to be one of the Tranquil, and though she still thought Irving could be made to see reason if they talked to him, Jowan insisted that it was just because she’d always been a favorite.  And that was valid.

            Sadly, what really decided her was the prize:  his phylactery.  For as comfortable as life in the Tower was, the idea that a vial of her blood would one day be taken and sealed away as a weapon against her, something that could seek and destroy her at the whim of whoever held it, was always unnerving.  Not only would it be good for Jowan to be out from under that weight, but perhaps _her_ phylactery would not yet be gone, and they could get at it as well.

            “All right,” she said.

            It only took a few hours for her to be sorry.

 

            _Dear Philoméne,_

_I address this portion of my notes to you directly, being transcribed not from the field, among the tribe that called themselves “Moon Halla,” but in transit back to the Tower.  You are five years old and sleeping in the tent next to mine, watched over by Templars.  That is our custom with children like you, as you will know well by the time you are able to read this._

_Calamity befell the tribe during my most recent and final visit:  en route to avoid an incursion of particularly ill-mannered humans, we fled directly into a new emerging place of darkspawn.  The resulting three-way clash was devastating to all parties.  Your mother, Urvarden, gave you to me and insisted that I flee with you, so as to ensure your survival, and so I have done so, with a heavy heart.  The situation as we left it was dire, and if any of your folk even survived, they would have been few, and by now long since scattered and absorbed into other tribes._

_I tell you this so that you may know who you are, and how you came to be in the Tower where I do not doubt you are living now, as you read this.  As life as an elf among the_ shemlen _goes, you will not do better than the Tower.  You will be respected as a woman of knowledge and strength, and treated as a peer.  In this, your luck remains strong.  May Andraste’s blessings go with you into your new life, little girl.       – Varsen_

            Luck had turned, and the days in the Tower were over.  Now she was traveling with the dark, quiet man named Duncan, who had had the power to absolve her of punishment by the Circle if she agreed to become a Gray Warden.

            It wasn’t all bad.  She would be free to explore a world she’d barely ever seen.  And Duncan himself seemed a good man – to her mind, almost a younger Irving in a way, strong of will but even of temper.  This made him a comfortable man to follow, but it also reminded her why she was so bitterly disappointed in herself.

            “He will never forgive me,” she mumbled into their campfire.

            “Irving?  He will.  Perhaps he already has.  Your mistake was only a misplaced virtue, not a vice.”  He poked at the logs to let air beneath them, letting the fire breathe and renew itself.  “All the same, I cannot promise that you will ever see him again.  You will have to make peace with what happened within yourself.”

            She nodded resolutely.  “Will being a Gray Warden be very hard?”

            “Yes.”  And then, as she blinked at the bluntness of his answer, he added, “But let us not trouble ourselves prematurely.  The hour is late, and you will want to be at your best when we arrive at Ostagar.”

 

*

 

            Of all people to run into, the Blessed Mother.  At all times, when his orders were only to wait for the recruits to gather, and when the Blessed Mother wanted a message run for her.  To the mages.

            Not that he’d been a Templar of great and widespread renown – or taken the oath at all, for that matter – but he’d had the training, which meant that he had that special spin on his energy or whatever that Templars had, and mages could _smell_ it on him, or something.  And that meant that no matter how he behaved, the first impression he would leave on a mage was colored by that mage’s thoughts on the Templars – except it was a little worse than that, because he wasn’t wearing the uniform.  It was as if he was an apostate Templar.

            Could there even be such a thing as an apostate Templar?

            At least Duncan was here now.  He’d be able to clean up whatever mess got made over this.

            All the same, he dragged his feet a bit, particularly as he passed between the mages’ encampment and the smith.  No harm in a quick look at the equipment:  the recruits might need to get something, after all.  But the smith was in the middle of some kind of argument with what Alistair assumed was a young mage.  Elven, thus short and slight, with white hair.  The smith was yelling at her – yes, as he moved to a different angle, he became sure of her gender – about where some armor had gotten to and how she was supposed to have fetched it.

            Oh, by Andraste, he hated it when people behaved like that.  Pointed ears didn’t automatically make someone a servant, particularly if she was clearly wearing mage’s robes.

            “Have you mistaken me for a servant?” she asked – and what made it interesting was her tone.  Not angry, or bitter, or sarcastic, or any of the other things he would have expected.  More like she was honestly taken by surprise, and couldn’t imagine how such a _silly_ mistake could have happened.  Like she’d only actually been an elf for a few days.

            It bewildered the smith as much as it did Alistair, and he immediately started stammering out apologies.  No need to intervene, then.  Too bad:  that left him back at actually running his errand.

            That went just as well as he had expected.  By the end he wasn’t even listening to his own quips, nor was the mage, who went off in a predictable huff – but _she_ was.  When the mage stormed off Alistair noticed her standing there, several paces away but within earshot.  Her eyes were dark and wide, and she had facial tattoos that looked vaguely like drawings he remembered of the Dalish from old books, but thicker and more angular.

            She was smiling, just a little.

            So he smiled back.  “One good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together.”

            She blinked at him.  “You are very odd.”

            “Mmm.  I hear that a lot.  Wait…you aren’t a mage, are you?”  Even though he knew she was.  Of course she was.  He’d been trained to feel that, even without the robes.  Well, _without the robes_ not meaning – although that certainly would be – while completely inappropriate – wait, hadn’t he asked a question?

            Now she was actually smiling even wider.  “Would it make your day worse if I was?”

            And then he realized why she had drawn his eye in the first place:  Duncan had described her.  She was going to join the Wardens.

            And then he started babbling like a happy idiot.

 


	2. The Last Shall Be First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair is traumatized by both the events at Ostagar and the nature of his rescue.

            “You’re lying.  This is some kind of trick.”

            Morrigan shot a glance at her mother that did nothing to alleviate his suspicions of her.  “Yes, Alistair,” she drawled.  “We have used all our powers to kidnap you from the midst of battle because I could not bear to be another moment without you.  Did you not see the love in my eyes when last we parted?”

            “Hush, girl,” said the old woman, and then spoke to Alistair directly.  “What she says is the truth.  Your battle is lost, and you are one of only very few who survived.”

            He shook his head, even though that made the heaviness come back into it.  “That can’t be right.  We lit the signal.  Teyrn Loghain must have seen it, and he would have – ”

            “Apparently his plans for the signal were not as he told you they would be,” said the old woman.  “He and his army retreated.”

            “So you’re saying he just left?  In the middle of the battle?  The great hero who fought back the armies of Orlais.  You’re saying he just _left_ Cailan and Duncan there to die?”  He seemed to have risen to his feet and started shouting, and the activity did no good things to his balance.  It was easy for them to seize him and sit him back down on the cot.

            Betrayed.  His half-brother and his mentor, as well as all the other Gray Wardens near enough to matter.  Why had the witches not saved one of _them_ instead?  Someone who would have been of some use, someone who would have known what to do?  _He_ had no idea what to do now, other than lie there with his fists pressed against his head, feeling selfishly grieved and alone in the world.

            “There,” Morrigan was saying to her mother, “he’s snapped like a dry twig.  That will be useful.  I see why he and the girl were the ones you saved.”

            There was no point arguing with her when he agreed with her:  but there was something in the statement that his fogged brain was trying to grab onto, that it seemed to think was important….

            “You do so hate to look beneath the surface of things, Morrigan.  Given time, my reasoning will become more than apparent, and perhaps then you will realize where your thinking falls short on matters like this.”

            _And the girl._   That was it.  They had Philoméne.  Sitting up again seemed like a bad idea, but he reached up for an arm – Morrigan’s proved the closest.  “Where have you got her?”

            Morrigan peeled his hand from her in distaste, but the old woman laughed.  “Where have I _got_ her?  In a bed, resting while she heals.  Where else would you suggest?”

            No, that was not good enough, not for the despair he was already sinking into over everything else.  “If she’s alive, let me see her.  Take me to – ”  Oh, Maker, the swimming in his head.  How in the world had he gotten up before?

            “You’re trying to undo hours of work, you know,” the old woman told him calmly, taking Morrigan’s place beside the cot, “and I will not allow it.  Lie still and let me finish.  You will see the girl when you can do it without collapsing on her.  Morrigan, why don’t you look in on our other guest and make sure she isn’t doing something equally foolhardy.”

            “Yes, Mother.”

            It was easier to rest without Morrigan staring at him with those freakish yellow eyes, that was true.  The old woman hummed and did strange things with herbs and bandages; since she did not seem given to small talk, there was nothing for him to do but muse over his brief acquaintance with the girl who might now be the only other Gray Warden in Ferelden.

 

            He had a reputation for being something of a chatterbox, but this time he really couldn’t help it.  She kept looking up at him with those big dark eyes, like she was actually _listening_ to what he said.  So he stared down at her rounded but delicate features, almost doll-like, and he kept talking.  And talking.  And it seemed to go surprisingly well until he said “I used to be a Templar.”

            Then her eyes went a little rounder, and she looked nervous.  “Oh.  You were… a mage-hunter, then?”

            Damn.  He’d all but forgotten already that she _was_ a mage.  Of course she was, she had to be:  she was much too slight to be any kind of fighter, and Duncan would never have chosen a recruit just for being pretty.  ( _We will defeat the darkspawn with the power of Pretty Things!  Cower from the might of our kittens!_ )

            “It was a choice made for me, a long time ago.  Anyway, I’m not really a proper Templar.  I never took the vows.  Duncan convinced the Chantry to let me go to be a Gray Warden.  It wasn’t easy, either.”

            “Oh.”  She looked pleasantly relieved.  “You didn’t really want to be a Templar, then?”

            “No.  I was at a Harrowing once, near the end.”  He shuddered at the memory.  “They… put a demon into a girl, to see if she could handle it.  She couldn’t, and we… had to put an end to it.  Quickly.  I would prefer never to see something like that again.”

            “I’d never thought about it from their perspective.  Even though – poor Cullen!  No wonder he was so flustered.”

            “Cullen?”

            “One of the Templars.  I just had my Harrowing a few – but we don’t need to talk about that!”  Wide-eyed again for a moment, now with a false smile added.  “Why would we need to talk about that?” 

            “I don’t know.  Would we?”  He smiled back, in a way he hoped would put her more at ease.  “So you’ve just become a mage recently.  First time out of the Tower, then?  How are you liking it so far?”

            She nodded.  “First time since I was five, yes.  It’s all very… big.  And open.  And I don’t know anyone.  And they don’t know me.  And some of them are very nice, but some of them keep shouting at me or thinking I’m a _servant._ ”

            He scratched at his neck.  “Yes, I’m afraid you’ll keep getting a certain amount of that.  Outside the Tower there are not that many elves in the higher ranks of… well, anything.”

            “Well, I knew that!  We read all sorts of books about history, you know.  But I have the _robe_ on, and all.  Surely a servant wouldn’t just go around wearing a mage’s robe, would they?  Surely there is a respect due to one’s office, no matter what one thinks about the races.”

            “You would like to think so, but that is not always the way it works.”  She was darling.  It was so strange to think that he was going to be training someone even more naïve than he was.

            So there it was, the mystery:  why Duncan would select a sweet, tiny, innocent thing to become a Gray Warden.  But it was solved for him the instant they and the other two recruits set foot outside the gates protecting the encampment from the wilds.  They had barely walked any distance when the pack of tainted wolves attacked them, and –

            And as he and the other men drew their swords, there was a great cracking sound and an arc of blinding light, and _three_ wolves howled in pain as lightning burned its way through their flesh.  He had enough experience with mages to recover quickly from the shock and surge forward, but the others took longer, and had barely entered the fight when it was over.

            Once it was clear that all the animals were dead, they all stared at Philoméne.  Daveth was almost beside himself.  “Maker… sodding… ”

            “I’m a mage, Daveth,” she said calmly.  “I thought you knew that.”  She began to move casually among the dead bodies.

            “Most people never see the kind of thing you just did,” Alistair explained.  “And then to see it come out of someone so, ah, small.  And young.  I mean – ”

            “You mean female and elven,” she said, but she was smiling.  “I was supposed to be scared and hide behind you, wasn’t I?  But I’d never be much of a Warden behaving like that.  Anyway, I’ve been through the Harrowing.  Wolves aren’t that bad.”

            “Well, it’ll be darkspawn soon.”

            But she was not much more intimidated by darkspawn – certainly much cooler-headed than the other two.  Before long she was clearly taking the lead, and Daveth and Jory followed her without question.

            And the _lightning._   Maker’s breath.

            “And no one in the Circle found you the least bit extraordinary?” he asked her at last, with a lopsided grin.  “Really?”

            “I never said that.  Actually people claimed I was the First Enchanter’s favorite.”  She frowned a little.  “Of course that was before.”

            Before he could ask _before what_ , the real witch swooped down on them, snide and hateful from the first instant.  Morrigan.

 

            So strange that she and her mother should have been the ones to save them when the tower fell.  When the great hero Loghain betrayed them.  The whole world was upside-down from the way it was supposed to be.

            When he was clear-headed enough to walk, he left the tent they were keeping him in and started pacing between the women’s hut and the bit of marsh it faced.  Any minute now, he’d work up the nerve to ask again where Philoméne was.  As soon as he decided what he was going to do if they wouldn’t tell him, or if she was dead too, or –

            “You see?” the old woman chortled.  “Here is your Gray Warden, unharmed, just as I promised.”

            He spun around and there she was, weary-looking but whole.  Gone back from arcane wonder to soft-faced doll, leaving no sign of how she kept making the transition between the two.

            “You.  You’re alive.  I was sure you were dead.”  He threw his arms open, but managed to stop himself from stepping forward.  Even if he’d lost everyone close to him and she was amazing, it was far too soon to go flinging himself at the poor girl.

            But she stepped into his arms before he could drop them.  “I’m so sorry, Alistair.”

            “I can’t believe this is happening,” he sighed, and he meant so many different things.

 


	3. The Fallen Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philomene confesses to Alistair, Morrigan, and Leliana why she was kicked out of the Tower, so they'll know when the party goes back to the Tower. Awkward!

            Philoméne’s charm combined with Leliana’s managed to find one small room for the four of them in spite of the crowding.  So, having a crazy Chantry girl along was useful for that much, at least in Lothering where they seemed to know her.  After a lot of mutual polite posturing, it was finally agreed that it was also Philoméne and Leliana who would share the only bed, and Alistair and Morrigan would take the floor.  This involved moving the bed so that they could sleep on opposite sides of the room, but once that was done everyone seemed content enough.

            Such essentials decided, Philoméne sat down on her side of the bed and regarded the rest of them with a thoughtful look.  “I want to tell you where we’ll be going from here, and why.  It’s still a bit odd to me to be the one in command, and I want you all to understand my thoughts.”

            “It _is_ odd, isn’t it?” Morrigan mused, turning to look at Alistair.  “I had been meaning to ask about that, in fact.”

            “Don’t,” said Alistair. 

            There was just room enough for all of them to sit, although Morrigan kept herself to the very edge lest her back touch Alistair’s, which was fine with him.

            Philoméne nodded, then sighed.  “I want to go to the Circle first.  If I am still Irving’s pet, then we will get his help easily.  If not, it’s best we know immediately what it will take to persuade him to honor the contract.  And Alistair, if it’s true that Arl Eamon is suffering from some unnatural sickness, it seems to me that the mages will be best able to help him.”

            “That sounds reasonable,” Alistair said.  “But you make it sound as if we’re missing something.  Is there a reason you would be out of the First Enchanter’s favor?”

            Frowns on her were adorable pouts, which distracted him for a moment from the gravity of her answer.  “Yes, in fact, there is.  And I suppose I’m telling all three of you at once in the hopes that at least one of you will be sympathetic instead of judgmental.”

            “I wouldn’t judge you!” Alistair protested.  “Why would I judge you?”

            “Because,” Morrigan drawled, “you are a Templar, and judging mages harshly is the whole point of your training.  Is it not?”

            “I wouldn’t say so, no!  We also protect the – right,” he said, stopping himself short as he saw the weariness cross Philoméne’s face.  “We’re changing the subject.  Right, sorry.  Please go ahead.”

            She seemed to steel herself against their imagined disapproval before she spoke.  “You have to understand what it is like to live your life in the Tower.  Not that I am ungrateful:  I’m learning that it was one of the better places for an elf to be.  And there is a sense of home and family there, and the chance to learn and to use one’s talents for good.  And – ”

            “And indeed,” Morrigan interrupted, “it was all so paradisiacal that you never left the Tower, and we are not all here waiting for the story to begin, after all.”

            Philoméne gulped.  “Fair enough.  There is no leaving the Tower.  Ever.  It is as if we are the property of the Chantry, and they do not quite trust us.  We must all be guarded, and we must all be tested by the Harrowing, and we are killed if we fail.  Those who refuse the Harrowing or are deemed unlikely to survive it are made Tranquil, and that… that is too awful.”  She shuddered.  “It’s like their souls are dead.”  A pointed look at Morrigan.  “So yes, for all the fondness, there was a part of me that wanted to be free of them.”

            Morrigan nodded.  “Mmm.  I thought so.”

            Now Philoméne raised a hand to her forehead.  “My friend Jowan was going to be made Tranquil.  At least that is what he said.  He and his Chantry girl.  They said they had seen the order themselves.  I suppose I can’t know any more if they told me anything true at all.  But at the time – he’d been my best friend forever, and he begged me to help him escape before they could do that to him.” 

            She was becoming distraught, and Alistair frowned, unhappy by extension.

            “It was all stupid,” she moaned, “and they didn’t have _any_ sort of a plan at all, because Jowan’s always an idiot with things like that, so I had to do everything.  And as soon as we had his phylactery there were Irving and Gregoir, because they’d been watching him all along, because actually he was a _blood mage_.  And I never knew, and he was lying to me, and I ruined everything I had on his accursed word.”

            “Is that really so bad, his being a blood mage?  If you had succeeded, you might have remained friends.”

            “Blood magic warps people’s minds and uses their blood and their death for power.  No, I could not have followed him that far.  I had other powers to draw on that are not so awful.”

            Morrigan shrugged.  “Perhaps he adopted it out of desperation for power.  Those who lack it in one form will seek it in another, for survival’s sake if nothing else.”

            Philoméne slumped over a little, defeated.  “I suppose so.  They _would_ have made him Tranquil eventually, I think.  He was never that strong.  It won’t matter now:  they’ll execute him.  It may have happened already.”

            “What a terrible way to lose your friend,” Leliana sighed.

            So there was that gone as a comforting thing to say, Alistair thought.  He had to come up with something, and quickly, so Philoméne wouldn’t think he really was a judgmental Templar who thought less of her for trying to help a blood mage.  “But you didn’t know, right?  You were just trying to help.  You didn’t know what he was.”

            Iffy, but apparently adequate.  “That’s what Duncan said.  He said it was a misplaced virtue rather than a vice.  He thought Irving would forgive me eventually.  But I don’t know.  And I don’t know when ‘eventually’ is.  But we need the mages, so I have to find out.”  She looked around at all of them in turn.  “Do any of you object to going to the Tower first?”

            Leliana and Alistair shook their heads.  Morrigan crossed her arms and said, “As long as Alistair does not plan to turn both of us over as apostates, I have no objection.”

            That could have turned into yet another argument, but he stopped himself short when Philoméne laughed.  “You know, I feel a little bit like an apostate, really.  I’m not looking forward to seeing Gregoir again at all.  But there we are:  it needs done.”  With that, she rose to her feet.  “I think I would like to take a walk before I settle in for the evening.”  She nodded to them and left the room.

            “It must be so hard, that life,” Leliana said.  “I never really thought about it.  They have to be so strong to survive.”

            “And yet weak enough to let the Chantry keep them like cattle,” Morrigan retorted.  “The wonder is that more of them don’t leave, like our Warden did.”

            No, he wasn’t going to rise to the bait.  There was no point.  “I think I might go for a walk as well.”

            But that made both of the other women smirk at him.  “Yes, Alistair, you should go and keep an eye on her,” said Morrigan.  “Make sure she doesn’t do any blood magic.”

            “You’re not really Flemeth’s _daughter_ , are you?” he asked as he got up to leave.  “You’re some kind of golem made entirely out of poison, right?”

            “I was wondering, Morrigan,” Leliana asked as Alistair was fleeing the room, “do you believe in the Maker?”

            Just as well not to be around for _that_ conversation.

            He did not seek out Philoméne, as they both seemed to be assuming he would.  She had the right to a moment to herself if she wanted it.  A moment away from the other three of them bickering.  Leliana might grow on him, since she at least seemed to be a lunatic with good intentions and a friendly nature, but it was going to be hard _not_ to turn Morrigan over as an apostate now that she’d planted the idea in his head.

            Hmm.  Would Flemeth find out?  Would she be able to find him afterwards?  Could he resist the Blight as a toad?  Best not to test his luck.

A flash of color caught his eye, and he wandered toward it.  A wild rose bush, out in the middle of an untended field, and it was blossoming.  He passed one finger over the soft petals of the largest and most perfect of the flowers, a stubbornly cheerful red in the midst of brown, dry wasting.

            So strange and lovely.  Hadn’t Leliana just been talking about this?  Some dream she’d had?  _There is still hope_ , she’d said.  The token was wasted out here:  the darkspawn were on their way, and the refugees still here were already pulling up stakes to flee further north.  This last burst of prettiness was just going to be ignored or trampled underfoot by monsters.

            …Well.  Or he could take it with him.  He plucked it carefully and raised it to his face, breathed in its sweetness.  It felt strangely important, as if he was there to serve as witness and protector.  He promised himself that he would keep it safe.

            Silly of him, really.  It was just a flower.  But he’d spent his life attaching great importance to little things, and sometimes it helped.  Right now, when hope seemed to be in such short supply, he was willing to forgive himself a flower.  He found himself wondering where Philoméne’s hope was going to come from, and that kept him wandering around until well after dark.

 


	4. And Desire What Is Denied Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are not going well in the Tower. Particularly not for Cullen. (sex chapter)

 

            “I knew you would come,” she smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck.

            Cullen stood helpless as she kissed him, overwhelmed by the rush of bliss and confusion.  He didn’t remember coming here.  He didn’t remember anything before the feeling of her lips against his.  But that was just the way that love was, wasn’t it?

            Was it?  Or was something wrong? 

            “Philoméne.”  He pushed her away gently, grabbing her slender hands into his.  “Where are we?  How did I get here?”

            She laughed, that glorious laugh she had that could melt ice.  “What does it matter?  You’re here.”  When he did not respond to that answer, she shrugged, still grinning.  “Redcliffe.  But we’re free, Cullen.  Now that we are both free of the Tower, we can go wherever we like.  We can be the way you wanted.”

            “The way I – ” But she kissed him again, and all the thoughts flew out of his head.  This _was_ what he wanted, after all:  he had dreamed of this moment a thousand times.  He allowed himself to raise a hand into her hair and hold her to him.  Her tongue touched his, and he felt every muscle in his body tense, desperate to go further, beyond what he had dared to imagine.  His hands were already caressing her backside when he remembered what had held him in check for so long.

            “I can’t be doing this. Philoméne, I can’t.  I am a Templar.”

            She stroked his face; her breasts were pressed against him.  “No one is here.  Gregoir isn’t watching.”

            “But that’s not the point.  I took vows.”

            Her body slid up and down slightly against his in a way that made his head reel.  “Those are just words.  Don’t let words ruin us.”

            It was torture peeling her off of him, holding her back from embracing him again.  “They’re _not_ just words!  You know that.  You… you wouldn’t say that.”  His head was buzzing.  Starting to hurt.

            He hadn’t come to Redcliffe.  He was – the last thing he remembered was – was trying to stop Uldred –

            “Do you not want me, then?”  She was sulking, and she was devastating in her beauty, but something in her voice had gone wrong.  “Are you going to reject me now, after we’ve waited so long for this chance?”

            “Maker, give me strength,” he whispered.  “It is not….”  He made himself look into her eyes.  Yes, the truth was there:  less softness, less innocence than there should be.  “Yes, demon, I reject you.  You are a lie.”  He pushed back against the illusion, and it rippled and burst, leaving him alone.  He was behind some kind of blue

 

            “I did it,” she sighed into his shoulder.  “I was so afraid I couldn’t do it, Cullen.  But you were there with me.”

            They were in the new room she’d been assigned as an initiate.  A degree of privacy the apprentices were not afforded, here.  “I’m… I’m glad you passed.”

            “It must be horrible to have to watch, not knowing.”  She looked up at him, touched his chin.  “You make me feel safe.  I hope that you will always be the one watching over me.”

            He blushed a little, and let his arms wrap gently around her waist.  “I hope so too.”

            She giggled.  “Do you really?  Is that a promise, then?”

            “I can’t promise.  I have to go where I am assigned.  But I always – I always try to be assigned to you.”

            She kissed his cheek.  “You’re silly.  You didn’t read the letter from Gregoir yet, did you?”

            “The letter?”

            “It’s all the mages have been talking about all day.”  Her hand stroked across his back seductively, teasing, and came back between them holding a sealed note.

 

            _Notice:_

_As you will no doubt be aware, this has been a time of increased controversy and change within the Chantry, as concerns not only magic and mages but many subjects.  Most relevant to us is a new ruling by the high clergy that mages must be “adequately inspired” to be helpful to mankind, meaning that in certain respects their isolation from it is to be eased.  Conversely, it has been decided that accusations of abuse by the Templars would be lessened if steps were taken to ensure that we understood the mages to be “persons rather than merely targets.”_

_To both ends, the Grand Cleric has declared that the Templar vow of celibacy is to be lifted, presently on a temporary and experimental basis, to be made permanent.  New Templars will not have the vow included in their induction, and existing Templars are absolved of it.  Naturally I strongly advise prudence and caution to any who consider making use of this new leniency. – Knight Commander Gregoir_

            He looked up from the paper, stunned, and saw her almost hopping with glee – and then, when she saw his face, she turned suddenly bashful, covering her mouth and blushing.  “Oh, I’m being stupid, aren’t I?  It’s just… all those times I used to tease you, I really did want… but I’m being so forward.”

            Why did his mouth seem so dry?  “I’d heard that there was not always a vow of celibacy.  That it was disputed from time to time by the high clergy.  In training we all dismissed it as fantasy.”  He was staring at her.  “You have no idea how much I have wished for something like this.”

            She smiled her tenderest little smile.  “Have you?  So have I.  Have you wanted to… to look at me, Cullen?”

            He was ashamed to admit that he already had done, in a whole series of guilty stolen glimpses.  “Yes.”

            Slowly she unfastened her robes and let them slip from her, revealing all of her pale olive skin – just enough color versus the whiteness of her hair to keep her from looking like a ghost.  Just enough to have drawn his eyes all those times he was supposed to be decorously looking away.  She’d done all the real work of seducing him a long time ago:  this was a mere formality.  But now, now she _stood_ there, knowing he was looking, showing herself to him deliberately.

            He noticed himself chewing on the insides of his cheeks in his effort to keep himself under control.  Even that was threatening to stop working.

            This was too good to be true.  There was something he had to remember other than that she had wondrous pale breasts and a hungry look in her eyes.

            “Are you nervous?” she breathed, closing in on him, touching his face.  “I am, a little.  But… I want to try.  With you.”  She gave him a soft kiss, inviting him to respond, and he answered eagerly, catching her lip in his teeth to keep her there, hands wandering over every piece of flesh they could reach.

            Familiar.  Why was he thinking of Redcliffe?  He’d never even been to – and yet he was thinking that he had kissed her there.  That wasn’t right.  But the feel, the smell of her was too intoxicating, and he found himself helping her remove his breastplate, because he wanted to press her body against his with nothing interfering, the soft, lovely –

            But she shouldn’t even _be_ here –

            He was on the floor and she was straddling him, pinning him down.  “For once, Cullen,” she whispered, “just relax and be happy.”

            “No,” he rasped, his senses starting to come back to him.  “You’re not here.  You were banished from the Tower for… for helping the _blood mages._ ”  He threw her aside.  “Stop trying to deceive me, demon!  I will not serve you!”  He lashed out with all of the resistance he could muster, and for a split second his beautiful little elf girl had spiraling horns and glowing eyes, and then she was gone.

            Think.  Think quickly.

            He was in the penultimate floor of the Tower, behind some kind of magical barrier.  Uldred had not been able to put him down quickly, so he –

 

            “I’m here, Cullen.  Let me help you.”

            He could feel his reason cracking.  How many times now?  Where was the line between reality and illusion?  He clenched his eyes shut, panting.  “No.”

            “What’s happened?  Are you hurt?”  Her hand touched his shoulder, and he slapped it away vehemently.

            “ _No!_ ”  He could barely breathe.  “Why do you keep coming back?  You are no simple demon:  we are not in the Fade and you feel like solid flesh.  Even Uldred could not be that strong.”

            She looked startled; her gentle doe eyes were starting to register fear.  “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Cullen.  Please calm down.”

            “Calm down and rut with you while the other abominations finish their work?  Fine!”  He started grasping at the latches on his breastplate, stripping himself angrily while she watched, motionless.  “Clearly I cannot escape without engaging you, so I will give you what you want.  And then you will show me your true face.”

            Her façade did not crack.  She shied back one step from him, seeming terrified.  “My true face?  This is the only face I have.  I’m no shifter, Cullen, you know that.  You know me.”

            He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her close, fumbling at her fastenings with his free hand.  “Did you fail your Harrowing and I just refused to see it?  Is that when the demon took you, or did your blood mages put it inside you later?”  He gasped at the next thought, which made him feel even sicker.  “Or were you one of them all along?”

            She started to struggle as he peeled the robe away.  “Stop this,” she said, and he could feel the first wisp of an electrical spell forming.  Progress – in fighting him she would reveal herself.  He ripped the spell away from her.

            “Then tell me the truth,” he snarled.

            The first tears, the look of a lost little girl.  “I am Philoméne, and I am trying to help you.”

            “Of course you are.  My sweet, _innocent_ Philoméne.”  He wrestled her onto the floor and pinned her beneath him, pressing her wrists down against the stone.  “Seducing me with smiles and glances for years so you could torture me when Uldred made his move.  Or else a demon who stole her form so you would be too beautiful to resist.”  He rubbed against her thighs, delighting in how she struggled.  “Well, now you have me, don’t you?  Show yourself!”

            She shook her head, biting her lip as the tears spread down her cheeks.  “Please.”

            “Please,” he echoed, and pounded into her as hard as he could.  She choked and sobbed as the tight wall of resistance that first met him broke and let him through.  She’d been a virgin:  that argued in favor of the demon, a more recent fall from grace.  That was something of a relief, and he kissed her quavering lips in gratitude.  The sensation of being inside her was everything he could have dreamed, and every other thought drowned in it.  Her body lay heavy and still under him as he rode her, her energy apparently invested mostly in weeping.

            At first it only seemed to fuel his rage further, and he went harder as he licked the moisture from her face.  But it slowly dawned on him that she had never broken character:  she had never, this time, done or said anything to suggest that she was other than his Philoméne.  And he was – Maker’s mercy, what was he doing?

            He released her wrists and reared up to look at her, his eyes rounding in horror.  She was even beautiful crying, which only made it more painful to realize that he was hurting her.

            “Why – ”  She could barely get the words out, a series of soft whimpers.  “Why did you not just _ask_ me, Cullen?  I… I would have….”

            He lowered his forehead to hers, weeping himself.  “I’m so sorry.  I have never in my life wanted to hurt you.  I was – are you all right?”

            She slowly lifted her arms around his neck, forgiving of even so profound a transgression.  So sweet and gentle – but then the touch of her fingers became too confident to be plausible, and the voice went wrong again.  “Well, then.  You may as well finish now, as long as we’re here.”

            And then she was laughing, and he screamed, and his hands were around her neck, choking the deceit out of her –

            He could see the blue wall of force again.  He was fully dressed, as if she had never been there.  Somewhere, dark mages and demons were running rampant through the Tower, and there was nothing he could do, no course of action that would free him from whatever, whoever, was so determined to shatter him.

            This time she appeared on the other side of the wall – playing his keeper, perhaps, or his rescuer.  She hurried as close as she could to face him, daring to look surprised.  “Cullen?”

            He fell to his knees howling.

 


	5. A Templar's Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philomene and a desire demon calmly discuss the business of tempting Templars while Alistair tries to get his head on straight. And that's before they find Cullen.

            Alistair waved off the children and slouched back toward where his sister was waiting, exhausted.  “They never stop,” he told her with a tired laugh.  “Maybe I should get them a dog.  Do you think I should get them a dog?”

            “I’m sure you could,” Goldanna smiled.  “Maybe the responsibility would be good for them.  Anyway, take a rest for a few minutes.  They can play without you for that long.”

            It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm.  Everything seemed nearly perfect – well, no.  There was that one thing.

            “Did I tell you about the girl I met, Goldanna?”

            His sister’s smile went bland.  “What girl was this?”

            “I think she was… an elf.  Yes, I’m sure she was.  Gorgeous little thing.  Funny, I can’t remember where I saw her, now.”  He tried to chase down the thought, failed miserably, sighed and gave up.  “I wonder what became of her.”

            Goldanna shrugged.  “If it’s really meant to be, you’ll see her again.”

            “Do you really think so?”

            “I… oh.”  A quick flash of something – anger? But why? – and then her face went bland again.  She was staring down the road to the house, and Alistair turned to follow her gaze.  It was the girl.  It was – Philoméne, that was her name.  There, _now_ it was perfect.  She came straight to him, took his hands.

            “I was just thinking about you!” he beamed.  “Isn’t that just – here.  This is my sister, Goldanna.  Those are – hmm, some of her children – ” he waved around at those he could still see and hear, romping through the fields.  “The rest of them are about somewhere.”

            Her look was warm, but it seemed to hold more pity than pleasure.  “They’re demons, you know.”

            “Pft.  They’re good children!  Just a bit… rambunctious, is all.”

            “Perhaps you’d like to invite your friend for dinner,” Goldanna said, but her smile was more forced than ever.

            “Yes!  Please stay.  Maybe she’ll make mince pie.  You can, can’t you?”  He was vaguely aware that his flirtations were roughly on the level of those of a seven year old, but he couldn’t help it.  He was feeling giddy.

            “Alistair,” Philoméne said in a very quiet, even voice, “I can’t stay, and you shouldn’t either.  I need you to think about what you were doing before you got here.”

            “What do you mean, before I got here?  I live here.”

            She squeezed his hands.  “Just try.  For me.”

            Why was his head swimming?  Everything seemed – sideways, somehow.  “I… I remember a tower.  We were…fighting something.  A demon.”

            She nodded emphatically.  “Yes.  It sent you into the Fade, and that is where we are now.”

            “This is a dream?”  Something about her voice sliced into the fog in his head, and the borders around everything but her seemed to soften.  “But it seems so real.”

            “Of course it’s real,” Goldanna cooed, laying a hand on his shoulder.  “Wash up for dinner.”

            Standing between his sister and the girl he was attracted to ought to be more pleasant than this.  Actually, it was becoming painful, as if they were sending shock waves up and down his arm.

            Philoméne spoke to Goldanna over his shoulder, placid as always.  “So again, the illusion of family.  You are not a very creative lot.”

            “Templars are easy that way,” Goldanna purred.  “It’s always either sex or home with them.  Basic human needs, ones that they are forced to give up forever.”

            “Mages must be harder, then.  You were a little off the mark with me.”

            The next bolt was so strong he thought his arm would go numb.  “But now you’re here with Alistair.  You like him, don’t you?  And he seems to like you.  We could all go and have mince pie together, and that would be much more pleasant than leaving.”

            “Two of us at once?  I think your eyes are too big for your stomach.”

            His arm was full of pins and needles, and it was intolerable.  “Ow,” he whined, pulling away from both of them.  That broke the stalemate:  he could see the first bolt of lightning shaping around Philoméne and the inhuman gleam in Goldanna’s eyes just before their powers clashed in earnest.

            A demon.  He’d never even _told_ anyone about Goldanna, hadn’t had a chance to learn anything about her, and yet this creature had just plucked her out of his brain and –

            There was no time to think about that.  The “children” were armed and swarming them, and he mowed them down, keeping them back from where his fellow Warden fought the demon.  By the time all the minions were slain, so was Goldanna, and only he and Philoméne stood there, looking awkward at each other.  He was in the process of apologizing for being so stupid when everything faded into blackness, and for some immeasurable time that was all there was:  then he fell back into the Fade, recognizing the landscape of it now, and all of them were together again – including the sloth demon they had been fighting when the dream began.

            That battle was long and grueling, and made him think that _sloth_ was not the right name for a demon that fought so stubbornly.  When at last they’d struck down the last of his forms and the dream world shattered from around them, for a few minutes all they could do was look around at each other, weary and introspective.

            He took her aside a few paces from the others.  “Do you, ah… remember where I was?”

            “With your sister.  Yes.”

            He blushed.  “I was afraid of that.  Let’s not talk about her again for a while.  But… may I ask…?”

            “I saw Duncan.”

            “You did?”  Somehow that was even more embarrassing, an affront.  “I should have gotten Duncan.”

            “That was what I thought at the time.”  She looked thoughtful.  “They don’t see into us perfectly, I don’t think.  They find something near the surface and extrapolate from it.  That is what gives us a chance to see that the feeling is not ours.”

            “But then I – ”  He snapped his mouth shut.  _But then I started thinking about you._   “I think we should keep moving.”

            There were no more demons waiting to ensnare them, thank the Maker, and although there was still trouble enough, comparatively it was an easier pace.  He was, in fact, loitering to see if Wynne or Leliana said anything interesting about their own dreams when he heard Philoméne cry out in the next room, and cursing himself for inattention, ran to see what had happened.

            It was not a threat that troubled her, but a lone Templar kneeling within some kind of magical cage.  He looked no older than himself or Philoméne, but anguish was carved into his face.

            “No,” he snarled up at Philoméne.  “Not this trick again.  I will not believe.”

            “He’s delirious,” Wynne said.  “The poor boy.”

            Philoméne tested the barrier around him as the others watched him cowering on his knees, averting his gaze from them, with varying degrees of pity.  But she was visibly tense, and the hand she raised was shaking slightly.

            “They have kept him without food and water,” Leliana said.  “I can tell.  Perhaps I could – ”

            “No!” he roared at her.  “Do not touch me!”

            “You couldn’t anyway,” Philoméne sighed over her shoulder.  “I can’t see how to take it down.”  Yes, Alistair thought, there was something in her face that suggested pain beyond pity for a stranger; and when she turned back to the trapped young man, it was quickly clear why.  “Cullen, don’t you recognize me?”

            He made a sound somewhere between hysterical laughter and sobbing.  “Only too well.  I thought it was my secret shame, this infatuation, but you rooted it out, didn’t you?  And I will answer to the Maker for all the dark things I have done to her in my dreams.”  He dared to glance upward, his eyes glittering with hatred.  “But I will not answer to _you._ ”

            He’d wanted Philoméne?  And him a full Templar, vowed to celibacy – yes, that would be quite a morsel for a desire demon or a blood mage to find in his head.  What sorts of “dark things” had he been imagining up here?  …Had she ever wanted him back?

            Certainly she had felt something for him, friendship if nothing else:  she fell to her knees in front of him, as if trying to force him to look at her.  Her voice when she spoke again was strained.  “What did they do to you?  How – why would the thought of me hurt you so much?”

            He clenched his fists.  “A mage, of all things.  Perhaps you are _all_ demons under the skin.  You are everything I am sworn against.”  He nodded slowly.  “Yes.  I will hold to that, and I will be able to resist.  Now begone!”

            Alistair could hear her fighting not to cry.  “But it really is me, Cullen.  I am not a trick or a demon.”

            His eyes finally locked on hers, and doubt crossed his face.  “You are still here.”  A hint of approaching panic.  “But that always worked before.  How can you still be here?”  He stood, perhaps in an impulse to back away from her, but as she rose to her feet, he seemed to begin to understand.  “By the Maker.  But… but you’re gone.”

            “I came back.  I know what’s happened.  I have come to fight Uldred.”

            “Have you?”  He raised a hand to his head, a pained look on his face.  “They are upstairs.  He must control all of them by now.  You will have to kill them all.”

            “All of the abominations, yes, and Uldred.  Will that free you?”

            “ _All_ of them, Philoméne.  All the mages he has touched.  It’s the only way to be sure.”

            Alistair stared, sure now that the man’s mind had fractured.  This went beyond the way that the Templars were trained – this was vengeance, not caution.

            Philoméne shook her head.  “I can’t do that.”

            “You must!” Cullen snapped.  “You cannot know by looking at them who has turned!  They can reach inside your head and – oh.  Oh, I see.”  He was bitter now, heartbroken, and he did finally back away a step.  “I know why you left.  You were helping Jowan.  Go then!  Help your friends.  Maker knows I can’t stop you.”

            Philoméne stood in place for a moment, gaping in hurt; at last Alistair touched her shoulder.  “We’d better go.  I don’t think you’re going to be able to reason with him right now.”

            Cullen glowered over his shoulder at Alistair, then waved him off.  “There, and you already have a new pet Templar, haven’t you?  Go, enchantress.  Finish your work.  I’m sure Uldred tires of waiting.”

            It was a good thing, Alistair thought as they walked away, that he’d realized how far gone Cullen was before he’d started saying things like _enchantress_ and _pet Templar._

            Uldred had, himself, become an abomination – the only one that wasn’t hideous, as it happened.  One more way it paid to be the leader, perhaps.  He had a long and somewhat bewildering conversation with Philoméne and Wynne that had something to do with mages being larvae, or… anyway, it came down to threatening to make an abomination of Philoméne against her will. 

            She turned him down very politely.  She was relentless in her courtesy at all times that she wasn’t actually frying anyone from the inside.  But then, of course, it was time to do that to Uldred, and Alistair was happy to support her.  There was something oddly comfortable about fighting abominations:  it was a skill he had been trained to, after all.

            In fact, it was the conversation with the Knight Commander, the First Enchanter, and Cullen when the battle was over that was more unsettling.  Cullen remained convinced that all of the surviving mages were potentially tainted, up to and including Irving himself, and Gregoir virtually had to shout him down.  And yet they let him stay there, scowling from a corner as his superiors exchanged pleasant words and promises of help with Philoméne.

            “Do you think they’ll, you know, do something to help him?” Alistair muttered to Leliana.  “They can’t let him go straight back to guarding mages when he still wants them all _dead_ , can they?”

            “I would hope not.  But they are going to be so short-handed now.  I hope they will send someone from the Chantry to comfort the survivors.”

            “Yes.  I’m sure that will fix everything.”

            When Philoméne returned to them, Wynne was still with her, apparently having volunteered to join them permanently.  A proven veteran from Ostagar, and to all appearances, sane and personable.  That made her something of a first for them.

            Still, Philoméne was in a quiet mood as they left the Tower, and remained so until they made camp.  He finally tried to get her talking by the fire.  “It’ll be good to have a healer with us.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sometimes I get hurt running headlong into our enemies.  Scraped knees and things.”

            “You don’t hate me, do you?”

            “Umm… no?  What, is it a trick question or something?”

            “For being a mage, I mean.”

            Ah.  “No, I don’t.  We’re not all like that.  Maybe he wasn’t always like that.  Who knows how long the poor bastard was tortured before we found him.”

            “With thoughts of me.  I mean, I know that doesn’t technically make it my fault, but it’s depressing.  And this whole insurrection of blood mages was simmering while I was still there, and I never saw it.”

            “Neither did anyone else, apparently, and you were still just an apprentice.  Try not to worry about it.  We’ve got lots of things to worry about.  You don’t need to go hunting for more.”

            “I guess you’re right.”  She shuffled one foot.  “On a totally different subject, I found something I thought you might like.”  She quickly pulled it out of her belt pouch:  a tiny statuette, a demon carved out of blue rock.

            It would not be manly to giggle with delight, so he held himself down to an idiot grin.  “Wow!  I used to play with – ah, collect these.  For the craftsmanship.”  He took it from her hand and ran his thumb over the contours.  “It’s an art form, you see.  This one is very nicely done.  Thank you.”

            “You’re welcome.”  She smiled, and she was smiling because of him, and it was wonderful.

            “Does this make me your pet Templar, officially?”

            She winced.  “Too soon for jokes, Alistair.”

            “Of course it is.  I’m an idiot.  That’s the real reason they let me go, you know, the whole being an idiot thing.  But it’s helped with the running into my enemies headlong.  I’ll just, ah, go play with my new toy now.”

            She was back to grinning as he retreated.  She might have thought that he was kidding.

 


	6. Unwanted Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran is far more charming than Alistair would like him to be. Fortunately, Philomene is strangely impervious to charm.

            “Why would I want you to come with us?” she asked the elf sprawled on the ground before them.

            He was in the middle of listing his qualifications as an assassin when his expression changed, and he started looking at Philoméne in a way that Alistair didn’t entirely like.  Funny, since it wasn’t his “The Gray Wardens die here!” look, which Alistair supposed he ought to like even less.

            “I could also stand around and look pretty,” he was saying now.  “Warm your bed, ward off unwanted suitors, no?”

            Alistair winced a little, and Zevran’s eyes flitted toward him, shining with an unwanted degree of recognition.  _Aha.  Suitors like you._

            “No,” Philoméne answered.

            Alistair tried to pretend that he was not a little bit relieved.  Zevran laughed a little, as if he did not quite believe her – and then he managed to shift just a little bit so that his pretty face and his litheness were even more apparent than they had been.  How was he managing to make lying defeated in the dirt look sexual?

Philoméne raised her hand a little before she spoke again.  “But we have a deal.”

            So much for relief, and so much for concealing his own preferences.  “What?” he cried, turning to stare at her.  “We’re taking the assassin now?  He tried to _kill_ you!”

            “So have a lot of people, lately.  I can’t afford to take it personally.”

            “How – ”  He tried to lower his voice, bringing it down as far as a rough hiss.  “How can you be so innocent and so blasé at the same time?  Do you really expect him to show us any loyalty?”

            She crossed her arms at him, a placid look on her face that only seemed to prove the objection he’d just raised to her behavior.  “No, I don’t.  I also don’t expect him to show any loyalty to Loghain, for which reason I no longer see a need to kill him.”

            She had him there.  “Right,” he said, a bit more calmly.  “But that doesn’t mean we need to keep him, does it?”

            “Would you rather we turned him loose to do whatever he liked?  He might really go back to his employer then, for lack of options if nothing else.  He’d be a liability.  But if we keep him, he might be of use to us.  And if he decides we’re of use to _him_ , he won’t be motivated to make trouble.”

            Struck silent again.  “How do you _do_ that?” he mumbled at last.  “Duncan used to do that.  Fine, then, I’ll… trust your judgment, I suppose.”

            “She is a very bright girl,” Zevran commented from the ground.  “I can see now why Loghain is so concerned about you.”

            Philoméne knelt to untie the assassin.  “I think you should leave it for now,” she told him.  “He’s already not happy about you.  I don’t think he wants to hear your thoughts on Loghain.”

            “Why not?  It’s not as if I was his lover.”  He grinned.  “Not that I would have turned him down, necessarily.  He had a certain aura of power that I always find attractive.  I think that his mind was on other things, however.  His second was concerned about civil war.”

            “I guess that’s not surprising,” Alistair mused.  “Cailan was a popular king.  Not everyone is just going to lie down and accept that Loghain abandoned him, even if it’s true that Arl Eamon is too sick to – I hope it’s not true.”

            “Well, _I_ think having an Antivan Crow with us will be a good idea,” Leliana chirped, ignoring the latter half of the conversation.

            So of course, Zevran walked next to Leliana for the remainder of the day.

            “There,” Alistair mumbled to Philoméne in satisfaction.  “She likes a good project.  Let her redeem _that._ ”

            “Is there something I need to know?  Have you two met or something?”

            “What, me and Zevran?  No.  Why do you ask?”

            “Because I haven’t seen you so spiteful since… well, all right, just since Morrigan.  But she’s actually mean to you, and Zevran hasn’t done anything.”

            “Except try to kill us.  Look.”  He cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “This isn’t some… elf thing, is it?”

            She glared.  “You can’t think I’m treating him differently because he’s an elf.  Really?”

            “I don’t know.  Maybe.”

            “I’m treating him exactly the same as everyone else, really.  I’m an easy touch, that’s what it is.”  She was starting to raise her voice unconsciously.  “Assassins, murderous giants, blood mages.  Tell me a good story and I’ll go along with anything.”

            “Really,” Zevran commented from behind them.  “I will have to keep that in mind.”  But before Alistair could object, Leliana started talking with great noise and animation about Antivan ghost stories, drawing Zevran back away from the Wardens’ conversation, which in turn let Alistair turn his focus back to Philoméne.

            “No, no,” he sighed.  “I’m sorry.  I’m glad you try to see the good in people, really.  I’ll just have to watch your back, is all.”

            She smiled at him.  “Deal.”

            That was almost lovely enough to make him let the subject go.  Almost, but not quite.  “Only,” he murmured, leaning in toward her, “you _did_ see what he was doing there, right?  How he looked at you?”

            “Like someone he really, really wanted to untie him and let him live?”

            So, no, she didn’t see it.  Remarkable.

           

 


	7. Watch This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wee blue figurines are useful on guard duty and a great icebreaker for conversations with pretty girls.

            It was a dull night on watch.  They were able to camp up on a hill, which made it easier to see that there was, in fact, nothing to see for miles, except for the moonlight off of Lake Calahad.  He couldn’t feel any darkspawn in the area, and with Zevran accounted for, there seemed to be no other immanent threat.

            Alistair and Philoméne ended up reclined against their bedrolls by the fire.  He’d been keeping them awake with stories about making trouble at the Chantry as a youth, partly because he’d decided it was the safest part of his life to talk about for the moment.  He would have to start talking about Redcliffe and Arl Eamon eventually, since they were on the way there.  He would have to tell her who he really was.

            Maybe he’d be lucky, and she wouldn’t care.  She’d been fairly underwhelmed by Cailan and Loghain, after all:  civil and silver-tongued as good mages were trained to be, but by no means fearful or starstruck.  Of course, maybe she couldn’t be starstruck for the simple reason that she’d lived in the Tower all her life, and didn’t really have a sense of how important – and how self-important – people like them _were._

            Of course, that could still work in his favor.  Maybe it would be better for him to be Maric’s lost son than, say, Irving’s.

            At any rate, the conversation had died down, and they were both staring off into the fire, and probably in danger of falling asleep.  He pulled out the demon figurine she had given him and looked over it again.  She couldn’t have known how much he used to adore these things.  A profoundly lucky guess.  He rolled it around in his fingers a few times before concluding that he was, in fact, bored and tired enough to be silly.  He rolled over onto his side and held the little demon up on Philoméne’s knee.

            As she looked down at it, quizzical, he spoke in his best doll voice.  “It shouldn’t be called a watch when there isn’t anything to watch.  It’s more of a lie-around.”  The voice was rusty:  it squeaked a bit more than he wanted.

            She smirked like she was suppressing a laugh, and answered to the statuette rather than to him.  “Well, when there _is_ something to watch it’s more of a get-up-and-fight, so there you go.”

            “You should get rid of the assassin, you know.  I don’t trust him.”

            “Don’t you?  I didn’t know you’d spoken to him.”

            “I don’t need to.  I’m a demon!  I can hear his impure thoughts.”

            “Oh!  Well.  I suspect he has the same _impure thoughts_ about all of us, including Alistair.  It will all balance out.”

            “He’s not that pretty.”

            She smiled.  “If you say so.”

            “Get rid of Morrigan, too.  She worships me when you’re not looking, you know.  She’s eeeeevil.”

            “Your preferences sound very like Alistair’s.  I hope you aren’t corrupting him with your wickedness.”

            “No, no.  He’s a wonderful person.  Maybe a bit, you know.”  He was becoming more self-conscious about the fact that he was carrying on an entire conversation with a grown woman through a doll.  “Stupid.”

            “You mustn’t say things like that about him.  He’s my friend.”  She shot a sly but tactfully brief glance toward him, then returned to conversing with the bit of rock.  “So if I found more things like you, would I be treated to a whole show?  With voices and sound effects and all?”

            “…Maybe.”

            “Would there be kissing?”

            A nice thing about it being the wee hours of the morning was that it was surely too dark for her to see him blushing.  “Demons don’t kiss.  Except for desire demons.”

            “That’s awful.”  She bent down toward the statuette, her fingers brushing his to hold it still, and kissed it on the top of its carved head.  “Anyway,” she said, rising wearily to her feet, “it’s about the end of our watch, and I’m going to get Leliana up now.  Good night, demon.  Good night, Alistair.”  She smiled again over her shoulder as she went to Leliana’s tent.

            Jealous.  Yes.  Now he was jealous of a little piece of stone.  And faced with the prospect of telling Philoméne that the grown Warden who played with dolls was a grown _prince_ who played with dolls.

            No sense waking Sten.  It was going to be a while yet before he could sleep.

 


	8. Perpetual Failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair receives an underwhelming response to his big secret. Jowan catches Philomene up on his latest failures.

            Her response to his deep, dark secret was so negligible that he just had to press his luck.  “You do understand what I’m telling you, right?”

            There, that brought her usually placid face as close as it came to sneering.  “No, Alistair.  I have suddenly lost my comprehension of language.  Could I have it again in pictures?”

            “Ah, good.  I’ll have you siding with Morrigan against me in no time!  I mean the implications.  The whole thing about, you know.  Being a prince.”

            “You just finished assuring me that you weren’t a prince.”

            “I’m not!  I mean, I am Maric’s son, but…”  He pinched his nose, trying to pull himself back together.  “You know, maybe _I’m_ the one who doesn’t understand what I’m telling you.  It’s just that it’s always changed the way that people look at me, and I hate that.  Suddenly I’m too noble, or not noble enough, or.  Or a threat, or a secret weapon.  So.”  He made himself look at her.  Her eyes were unreadable to him, dark mirrors in which he never saw anything but himself.  He focused instead on the blunted roundness of her other features, atypical of elves, almost more like a doll.  It all served to exaggerate the sense that she was foreign to the real world.

            “So I didn’t tell you,” he sighed.  “And I should have.  I was afraid it would make things different.”

            “It doesn’t.”

            He waited for there to be more, but there wasn’t.  That was her whole, maddeningly concise thought on the matter.  And again, it drove him to keep pushing until he got the answer he expected, or at least one he understood.  “How can it not mean _anything_?”

            “Do you _want_ it to mean something?”

            “No!”  Maybe he did see something in her eyes after all:  maybe she was asking something deeper.  He took a breath and chose his words more carefully.  “No, I don’t.  I don’t want to be King, I don’t want to be a Theirin.  I have never wanted it, any more than I wanted to be a Templar.  Maybe even less.  What I want is to be a Gray Warden.”

            She nodded, smiled a little.  “Then that is what you are.  You see, it’s simple.”  And she took him by the hand – Maker help him, his heart was trying to escape out his throat – and led him down into Redcliffe.

            He watched her charm her way through his home city in much the same way as she had through Lothering, by being sweet, polite, and all but impervious to both flattery and offense.  Why should she not be an elven mage helping the Chantry?  Why should she not be invited into the homes of strangers?  Why should surly dwarves and even _spies_ not agree to fight by her side if she asked?  By not understanding the game as most people played it, she somehow made it break down, and people were compelled by pure shock to give her what she wanted.

            So at least he wasn’t alone in that.  Apparently it was even starting to work on Zevran, who was the one who had pointed out the spy.  She’d thanked him.  Smiling.

            Best not to dwell on that.

            Bann Teagan remembered him more easily and more fondly than he’d expected; and after they’d literally burned through the mysterious plague of undead things pouring out of the castle to attack the city, he’d hoped they would all simply go into the castle together to find Arl Eamon.  Of course it was nowhere near that simple.  While Teagan was telling them about the secret way in that he had known all along, _Isolde_ came.

            For a moment it was like being nine years old again.  All he absorbed of her presence was a shrill voice with an Orlesian accent, and he found himself waiting to hear his name invoked in an unfavorable light.  _Did you see how he was looking at the baby?_

            But no:  this time, when the tone he expected came out of her, it was “Who is this woman, Teagan?”

            She was going to take issue with _Philoméne._   That wouldn’t do at all.  He would have to divert her attention.

            He sighed.  “You remember _me_ , don’t you?”

            “Alistair?” she said, in just the way he remembered, as if she’d found a dead mouse in her shoe.  (He’d only done that once, and he had been sorely provoked.)  But now that her focus was already shifting, Teagan was able to twist it back toward something relevant, which was how they learned that what waited in the castle might be a demon – and might have something to do with Connor.  The little brother he’d never really wanted, but who hadn’t turned out to be his little brother after all.  They agreed that Teagan would go back with Isolde, since she had been sent for him specifically, while the Wardens crept in through a secret passage.

            “That’s not likely to end well,” Philoméne said as soon as the two groups separated.  “I hope you realize that.”

            “We’ll have to move quickly and hope for the best.”

            “Did she and Bann Teagan ever… ah.  I’m not sure how to ask it.”  She looked uncomfortable.  “Only she was _so_ glad to see him, and so unhappy that he was talking to me.”

            “Did they have an affair?  Not that I ever knew, but then, I wouldn’t.  And she can get like that around any woman prettier than she is, no matter who she’s talking to.”

            “Oh.”  She smiled just a little bit, and there might even have been a bit of color in her cheeks as she opened the trap door.

            Her good mood didn’t last long, however.  Isolde had blamed all Redcliffe’s troubles on a blood mage.  There had been nothing too extraordinary about that; it didn’t even occur to them that there would be any connection to what they’d found in the Tower.

            Not until they found the cell he was imprisoned in, and Philoméne saw him.

            She actually flung herself back against a wall, covered her face, and refused to go on.  “That’s enough,” she moaned.  “I don’t want to be a Gray Warden any more.  I want to hide under a rock.”

            The mage came to the cell door and tried to see around to them.  “Philoméne?  Is that really you?”

            She dropped her hands, and her head, and approached the door with an air of defeat.  “Yes, Jowan.  It’s me.  And you’re the blood mage who did this.”

            Jowan – Alistair searched his memory for the half-familiar name.  He was the one she’d helped escape from the Templars, the one she’d been expelled from the Tower for.

            “I didn’t summon the demon, Philoméne.  You have to believe me!  All I did was poison the Arl.”

            “Is that all you did!” she cried.  “Excellent!  In that case, out you come, and we shall throw you a _parade._   What color would you like for the streamers?”

            He looked beaten:  he had a face that looked natural for a beaten expression.  “Fine, I deserve that, especially from you.  Teyrn Loghain offered to free me if I would poison Arl Eamon.  He said he was a threat to Ferelden!  What was I supposed to do?”

            “Loghain told you to do it,” Alistair frowned.  “You’re sure it was him?”

            “Yes.  He’s left me to rot here, hasn’t he?”

            “You’re lucky if that’s the worst he does to you,” Philoméne snapped.  “How does this end up with the castle being invaded by a demon?”

            “I didn’t do that.  I… made an arrangement with Isolde that I would teach her son in secret, so he wouldn’t be taken away to the Tower.  He must have lost control.”

            “Good.  Good teaching.”  She leaned her head against the bars, pained.  “Maker, Jowan.   The only thing you know how to do is fail.”

            “Please, you have to let me out of here.  I have to do something to help.”

            Philoméne laughed.  “Am I supposed to trust you to do the right thing this time?  You haven’t been making a habit of it.”

            “I know.”  His voice dropped.  “And I know I need to pay for what I’ve done.  But please give me a chance to… to not mess up, one time.”

            She stood and stared at him for a moment.  By the time she spoke, she looked almost as defeated as he did.  “If you make things worse, if you run, if you do _one_ thing that makes me regret this, I will be the one who comes for you.”

            And she actually took out the key and fit it to the lock.  Alistair was mystified.  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

            “No.”

            The door swung open.  “Thank you,” Jowan breathed.  “You’re a good friend.”

            “Oh, do not invoke _friendship_ ,” she hissed.  “Go.”  He did, and she leaned against the open door, sighing and shaking her head.

            “What I am,” she lamented, “is a fool.”

            “He’s right, though,” Alistair said.  “You _are_ a good friend.  It’s really… kind of remarkable.”

            “Thank you.  I hope that doesn’t turn out to be my catastrophic failing.”

            It was clearly the wrong time to say, _So do I._

 


	9. Mille Cherubino in Core

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran is not going to fail for lack of trying. A deal is struck with Leliana.

            He’d decided she must be a virgin.  It ruined his little fantasy of naked moonlight vigils atop the Tower, but Wynne had already shot down that idea.  Now his mind had turned mage apprentices into sweet Chantry girls:  cloistered innocence and pent up energies waiting to be released.  Certainly little Philoméne carried a purer air about her than Leliana, who for all her piety had a bit too much experience in the sway of her hips for the image she was trying to convey.

            Not that Zevran minded that in the least.  But Philoméne carried both an extra sense of challenge and the potential side-benefit of making himself the adored pet of the group leader.  And she was a bit of an exotic for him as well, given his usual preference for brunettes.  He wondered whether her pubic hair would be as white as the hair on her head.

            But usually, even virgins were easier than this.  He’d been giving her his best smiles, his most graceful gestures; he’d taken care to use opportunities to show skin, to toss hair, to stand in flattering lights.  Nothing, not a single visible flutter.  Not so much as one longing sideways glance to use as an opening.  She did laugh a little at his jokes, and act appreciative when he defended her against idiots or did useful things like point out that spy in Redcliffe – but she did so in a completely polite and maddeningly chaste way.

            By the time they were in transit back to the Tower to fetch the mages for Jowan’s ritual, he had come back around to overt flattery, and other blatant moves he normally only used with either the very easy or those he had given up on entirely, for teasing. 

            She had no use for that, either.

            “I say that you are beautiful because it is _true._   Should I not?”

            “You should not.”  There – just the kind of short, absolute statement he had come, sadly, to expect.

            He cocked his head in that way that sane people found charming, flashed her a playful smile.  “Then should I lie, and say that you are ugly?”

            “You should remove my appearance from your thoughts entirely.”

            “And how would I do that?  You are profoundly naïve for a grown woman.  I find it strangely intoxicating.”  Happily, there was a tree to lean against, and he placed one hand against it, bringing them a hair closer together with the slightest hint of dominance, just enough to provoke a little thrill.

            “How is it naïve to _not_ automatically believe idle flattery?”

            “Well, here is the thing I have learned about that.  I tend to be very successful at this game, as it happens, and I am very seldom turned down except by those too inexperienced to know what they’re missing.”

            She smiled.  “So people who will lie with anyone who talks prettily will lie with you, and people who will do it with no one else, don’t with you either?  That is hardly the wisdom of the ages, is it?”

            “And yet we both arrive at this same conclusion, yes?  You reject me because you reject everyone.  You reject everyone because you are afraid of what happens after you accept.  Because that is something you do not know.”

            “The opposite of you.  It is _all_ you know, isn’t it?  Sex and blood.  But you are going to get neither one from me.  You are going to have to learn something else.”  With that, she sidestepped away from him and went to fraternize with the dwarven merchants who had taken to following them.

            _What else is there? …Money?_   But it was too late for a retort, and not worth pursuing her with it to try again.  At some point, dignity had to win out over stubbornness.  Given this amount of resistance, perhaps she was too fearful of sex to be worth training.  Or perhaps she fancied women.  Or her dog.  Who could say?

            He decided to spend the evening relaxing by the fire with a drink, re-evaluating his approach to making himself part of the group.  The sensible thing to do was to be more generally amiable, to build good will with the rest of the party.  Well, perhaps not with Sten, or Morrigan.  But they were unfriendly with everyone but the Warden, and their voices clearly carried less weight than the others.

            As night was falling, Leliana sat down next to him, brandishing a fresh bottle of wine.  He smiled and nodded.  Other than Philoméne she had been the first to warm to his presence and start placing trust in him.  And she was also pretty, but he’d already decided to devote this night to observation.

            She poured herself a drink and refilled his.  “You never had a chance, you know.”

            “So I have determined.”  He shrugged.  “It never hurts to try.”

            “I think they’re cute together.”

            “Hmm?”

            She gestured with her chin.  Alistair and Philoméne were off a little way from the fire opposite them, chatting.  Her body language was different with him, more open.  His with her was awkward and bashful, as if when speaking to her he completely forgot that he was a tower of well-trained muscle.  There were giggles and shy smiles flying back and forth between them constantly.

            Zevran sipped his wine thoughtfully.  “So that was the problem.  I didn’t even notice it.”

            “You were too busy trying to get into her tent.  Short-sighted.”

            “Perhaps.  To be honest, it has been a little while since I was on my best game.  There have been… distractions.”

            Suddenly there was awkwardness, looking away, shuffling of feet.  Alistair fumbled for something out of his pouch and fairly thrust it into her hands.

            Zevran leaned in closer to Leliana.  “Is that a rose?  Where did he get a rose?”

            “Some time ago.  He takes it out and looks at it sometimes.”

            Philoméne held the thing delicately in both hands, and Alistair’s hands closed over hers.  “Good,” Zevran whispered to himself.  “Good instinct.  Perhaps you’re not quite hopeless.”

            Eye-gazing and softer, more serious words, and then blushes that could be seen even in darkness from across the fire.  Their fingers slowly drifted apart, the girl still holding the rose, now studying it reverently as Alistair retreated to his tent.

            “And that’s it?  He creates the opening and then he runs away?”

            “They are innocents, Zevran.  It’s sweet.”

            “Sweet.  What does sweet accomplish?”  All the same, he had to admit at least to himself that it _was_ sweet – strangely adorable, in fact.  Like watching a lamb take its first steps. 

            “They’re like children.”

            “Hmph.  Children who have our lives in their hands.  There is only so much indulgence of youthful excesses we can afford, Leliana.  Darkspawn, political intrigue, _and_ baby’s first heartbreak?”

            “We could help them along, you know.”

            “Could we, now.”  He grinned.  “And what does the innocent Chantry girl bring to the table?  The Maker’s blessing?”

            “I was not always an innocent Chantry girl.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that much.”  She sipped her drink, then turned toward Zevran with a gaze that had without warning gone sultry and dark.  “I have wisdom to offer.”

            “Bard,” Zevran whispered.  “I thought so.”  He gave her a more relaxed, flirtatious smile, leaning in slightly.  “Now you had better drop this persona if you don’t want me reciprocating.”

            She giggled and softened partway back into the role of Chantry girl – though not entirely.  “Right, we mustn’t get distracted when we’re planning.  Do you agree?  We help the little fledglings learn to fly?”

            “Our own safety may depend on it, after all.  Yes, I think it will be an interesting project.”

            Across the fire, Philoméne sat down and traced rose petals delicately with her fingertips, blissfully unaware of being watched by both of her rogues.

 


	10. Kiss of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran offers Alistair some manly advice. And hands-on training.

            “Leliana, could you help me with something?”

            “Of course, Alistair.  What do you need?”

            He could already feel himself blushing, and he hadn’t even asked yet.  He’d asked Leliana for advice once before, and ended up expressing doubt of her gender.  He was not only dreadful at knowing what to do, he was dreadful at _asking_ what to do.  Still, now he’d brought it up, and she was looking at him, and there was nothing to do but go forward.

            “So, when you kiss a girl – ”  He stopped short, and the bard arched her eyebrows, a playful smirk on her face.  “No, no,” he stammered, trying to stop her before she could answer _that._   “You know that’s not what I meant.”

            She did not let it go that easily.  “A lot of boys like to think about two girls kissing, Alistair.  It is only natural.”

            “I wasn’t thinking about that.  Until now.”  Yes, his face was quite hot – probably glowing.  He cleared his throat.  “I mean, when _one_ kisses a girl.  The first time.  Do you just… I mean, do you just _do_ it?  Are you supposed to, like, warn them?  Is there a signal, or something?”

            “You’ve never even kissed before?  You are innocent even for a Templar.”

            “I’ve _been_ kissed a couple of times.  I didn’t ever make the approach.”

            “All right, then.”  She smiled, and coyly stepped in closer to him.  “When a girl kisses _you._   How does she start?  Do you remember?”

            He practically fell over backward.  “No.”

            “Well, being skittish is not going to help you, first of all.  Any seduction is an act of boldness, even if you are being subtle.”

            “I’m not ready to talk about _seduction._   Maker’s breath, look how out of sorts I am over _kissing._ ”

            “It’s the same principle.  You have to be a little daring, Alistair.  You can do that.”

            Unfortunately, all the movement and awkwardness had attracted Zevran’s attention, and he approached them.  “What’s so exciting over here?”

            Leliana smiled.  “We were just talking about girls kissing.”

            The assassin smiled and leaned on her shoulder.  “Ooh!  I’m in.  What two girls are we talking about?”

            “Me and Philoméne.”

            Now Zevran’s eyes were alight.  “Is this happening tonight?  Because I would pay to see that.”

            “No.”  Alistair felt like he was choking.  “Nobody is kissing Philoméne.”  _Oh, no.  Shut your mouth before he catches on._   The last thing he needed was for Zevran to know he had a crush on Philoméne.  Or anyone.

            “No?  Tsk tsk, what a shame.  She looks so kissable.”

            “Right.  Well.  I was on my way to… a bit of practice with my sword.”  He grabbed onto its hilt so as to leave no doubt in their filthy minds which one he meant.  “So I’ll just take my leave.”

            “I will come with you,” Zevran announced.  “Just enough to loosen the tendons, yes?  Always a good idea on such a chilly evening.”

            Leliana only shrugged at the look of dismay Alistair threw over his shoulder.  And it wasn’t as if he could _refuse_ to let Zevran practice.  He led the way to the dummy, defeated.  Zevran rolled his head and shoulders in preparation.

            “Cutting or throwing, do you think?” he asked.  “I worry that my throws are getting rusty.  Having someone with a bow at my back is already spoiling me.”

            “Do I want to think about you standing behind me and _throwing knives?_ ”

            Zevran shrugged.  “Sooner or later you are going to have to start trusting me, my friend.  And if I were going to throw anything at your back, I would not do it in such a quiet setting.”

            “And you wonder why I’m slow to trust you,” he snarled.  “Don’t try anything.  I’ve got my eye on you.”

            Zevran was unmoved.  “I’m flattered,” he smiled, “but I thought you already had your eye on someone else.”

            Oh, by the Maker, it wasn’t _that_ obvious, was it?  “I… don’t know what you’re talking about.  And you are evading my point.”

            “I am not offended, mind you.  You are a very handsome man.  And that pure, golden-hearted knight thing you’re doing?  It is an interesting approach, one I myself do not encounter very often.  I would be curious to see how it plays out once you actually reach the lovemaking part.”

            He could feel the blood rushing into his face.  Lovely.  What he couldn’t feel was the formation of any coherent response.  His mouth just opened and closed a couple of times, and that was all.

            “Oh!”  Zevran grinned at him.  “It is not an act, is it?  You’ve really never known the touch of a woman.  Or a man, for that matter.”  He mused over this peacefully for a moment.  “You know, I am very good at teaching my skills to others.  If you ever want to ask me for – ”

            “I do not want to ask you for anything!”

            “Of course not.”

            With that, the conversation seemed to be over, and Alistair was turning to walk away when Zevran added, “Only she is also a virgin, is she not?”

            He had to be red by now:  he could feel his blood burning as he turned on his heel and faced the elf again.  “That is absolutely none of your business.”

            Zevran calmly held up both his hands, an appeasing gesture.  “I only ask because you are going to hurt her if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

            “That’s ridi- ah, well.  That’s… not true.  Is it?”

            “It is quite true.  You can ask any of the others if you don’t believe me.  Except for our Warden, of course, as she won’t know any better than you do.”  He paused for a thoughtful sigh.  “Ironically, skill is never more important to success than it is to the first experience, when one is least likely to have it.  This is where I would be useful.”

            “Please tell me you’re not going to offer to have… to be with her first.”  As an afterthought he remembered to add, “Or me.”

            “Not _now._   Granted, it would have been the easiest way.  Or all three of us could convene somewhere, and I would supervise.”  He waved off Alistair’s protest before he could make it.  “Fine, if you’re sure.  You are missing an excellent opportunity, you know.  But if you prefer, I can try to teach you by other, less direct means.”

            The pretense of fighting practice seemed to have eroded entirely.  “A bit soon for it anyway,” Alistair mumbled.

            “Oho, I see.  That little progress.”  The elf seemed to muse over that for a moment.  “Will it help you to know that you have actually made more progress with her than I have?”

            “I knew it!  I knew you – ah… have I?  Really?”

            “Yes.  Apparently she is a little too innocent for the likes of me.”  He shrugged.  “It is too bad, but one cannot take these things personally.  Other options will present themselves, will they not?  Meanwhile, I will live vicariously through you.  But that will only work if you start doing something interesting.  How much physical contact has there been between you?”

            “That’s not – ”  Hadn’t he just been looking for help?  Was he this desperate?  “Ah.  We’ve… held hands.  A few times.”

            “And that’s all?  _Madre d’Andraste, vi sono infanti._ ”  Zevran glanced back at the rest of the camp over Alistair’s shoulder, checking their privacy.  “You could have kissed her when you gave her the rose, you know.  You were doing quite well until you gave up.”

            “When I gave her – were you watching?  You _watch_ us?”

            “Perhaps you are too love-struck to notice, my friend, but camp is boring.  Let us focus on the lesson, however.  Did you not recognize the opening, or were you afraid to take it?”

            Alistair sighed.  He was tired of sounding like an idiot, but he supposed it was inevitable given the subject.  “Opening?”

            “The moment when the woman signals you that you can proceed further.”  Zevran reached for Alistair’s hands and held them up at waist level between them, imitating the moment.  “You gave her the rose, and you held both her hands like this – that was very nice, by the way – and she looked at you like this.”  His eyes widened and his lips parted just slightly, giving an unusual softness to his face.  “That was an opening.”

            “Ah.”  Alistair took back one hand to scratch at the back of his neck.  “It was a little of both, then, I suppose.”  He considered for a second, and then confessed, “Mostly the second one, really.  I didn’t want to mess it up.”

            “That’s a good sign.  No, really.  Skill is easier to learn than awareness.”

            “Right, so.  What should I have done, then?  Just lean in and – ”

            “No no no.  Not just lean in, not from there.  You must know the importance of distance from fighting, surely.  This is the same.  If you lean in from the edge of your reach,” he said, leaning at an absurd angle toward Alistair to demonstrate, “that is awkward.  Step in closer,” and he stepped up close, hands still clasped between them, smirking playfully, “and your strike can be much more graceful.”

            They were standing quite near each other now, in fact, and there was no denying that the thought of being equally close to Philoméne was enough to shift the rhythm of his breath slightly.  “I’m not convinced I want to think of it as a _strike_ ,” he said quietly, “but proceed.”

            Zevran nodded.  “If she is receptive, she will already be lifting her head to face you when you step close.  You will enhance this with your hand.  Here, put your shield arm around my waist.”  He grabbed Alistair’s hand before he could protest and moved it in the right direction.  “But don’t jerk me forward too quickly.”

            “No worries there,” Alistair mumbled.

            “Tsk.  Focus!  The point is that this should be a smooth, natural motion.  Now, the sword hand, there are two options.  The coy one is to lift her chin with one finger.”  He reached for Alistair’s right hand and raised it to his face, using it to tilt his own face upward.

            But for the moment, Alistair forgot his discomfort in favor of absorbing the information.  “Wait, so where are her arms when I do this?”

            “Her left arm is most likely around your waist.”  This he did not demonstrate, since he was still guiding Alistair with his left hand.  “Her right arm might be below or above your arm, depending on how eager she is.  In our Warden’s case, I would wager it will be below, the first time.”  Zevran snaked his arm beneath Alistair’s and touched his waist lightly.

            Alistair nodded, beginning to understand.  “It’s a little like dancing, then.”

            “Yes, a little like dancing.  You dance?”

            “I like dancing.”

            “That is the kind of contact you want.  You are leading, but not forcing.  Firm but not too hard.  That is going to apply to everything, so remember it.  The second option will be best, I think.  Your hand will cup the back of her head.  Gently, not like you want to slam her into something.  Just enough to encourage the kiss.”  He paused, waiting for Alistair to try it himself.  No.

            _Like I want to slam her into something?  Does he think I’m an idiot?  Well… yes, probably._   He sent his hand back, gentle as he could be with gauntlets still on, to curl two fingers tentatively behind Zevran’s neck.

            “Yes.  That’s really not bad.”  Zevran tilted his head up, eyelids heavy.  “Almost there.  You lean in, and you pull just a little, and the lips – Maker’s breath, Alistair, don’t clench your jaw!  Relax.” 

            He didn’t realize his jaw _was_ clenched until Zevran reached up and forced it open with a pinch from underneath it.  Too tense, obviously.  He made himself relax, and in response, the elf drew him forward with one finger under his chin – option number one – and brought their lips together.

            Mentally he froze, but for the moment it took for his body to realize that, he apparently performed adequately.  Their mouths opened and slid together easily, as if Alistair had some idea what he was doing.  He didn’t even retreat until Zevran decided to find out whether he would tolerate instruction on what to do with the tongue.

            He jumped back out of the elf’s embrace, cleared his throat, and gave Zevran a severe but not hateful look.  “Yes.  Well.  Hadn’t we agreed on _less direct methods?_ ”

            Zevran shrugged.  “Basic principles, that’s all.  Touch and kissing are fairly constant regardless of partner.  From here forward, the discrepancies between my body and Philoméne’s will become more important, and hands-on training less useful.  In this direction, at least.”

            “In any direction,” Alistair said quickly.  “I mean, there’s no… direction to… I’m done.  I’m done for today.  Thank you.  Off I go!”  Blushing again, he was sure of it.  But he held the panic down to a level that let him stride away quickly rather than running.  Dignity.

            Within a few steps he could hear Leliana singing near the fire.  Her voice was lovely, but the song was in a language he didn’t understand.  All the others were watching her – which meant that they probably hadn’t been watching his _interesting_ exchange with Zevran.  He sighed in relief, only to notice that Leliana turned and regarded him with a little too meaningful a look as he neared his tent.  Zevran, a few paces behind him, approached the bard after she finished singing.

            She’d been providing a distraction.  The sweet, crazy Chantry girl was conspiring against him with the untrustworthy elven assassin.  …To make him into a better kisser.  It didn’t make any sense at all.

 


	11. Touching the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor is saved, and Alistair tries out his cool new techniques.

            Alistair thought that Philoméne’s willingness to go into the Fade herself to save Connor was a wonderful idea, one that had spared them the awful problem of deciding whether to kill a mere child or let his mother – his own adoptive stepmother, he supposed – be sacrificed to do blood magic to fetch him.  A perfect-sounding solution, up until the moment when Irving’s spell took hold and Philoméne went glass-eyed and limp in front of him, apparently held upright not by her own will but by magical force.

            “Don’t touch her,” Jowan whispered beside him.  “No matter how it looks.  It would be dangerous for you both.”

            As if Alistair didn’t _know_ that.  He’d been just short of taking his vows as a Templar when Duncan had come for him.  He didn’t have to be told by the _blood mage_ how honest magic worked.  But knowledge didn’t make the blank stare any less disconcerting, or erase the memory of the girl he’d seen struck down because she went into the Fade, faced a demon for her Harrowing, and failed.

            Of course, Philoméne had been through the Harrowing already before he knew her, and more recently had saved Alistair and the others from a demon while inside the Fade.  But _he’d_ been in the Fade then, too, and had seen it from that perspective.  There she would be all will and lightning, but here… here she looked vulnerable, even fragile.  And from outside, there was nothing he could do if something went wrong.  He didn’t like it.

            All at once she seized up, the light and the blindness fading from her eyes as she collapsed onto her knees.  Irving and the other mages recoiled, the spell broken.  Now he could move.  He hurried forward and gathered her up by her shoulders.  “Are you all right?  Did it work?”

            She groaned a little, stretched her fingers as if re-acquainting herself with them, nodded slowly.  “I think so.  I killed the demon, at any rate.”

            “I must admit,” Morrigan said quietly, “I was not convinced it was worth the risk, but you seem to hold your own well in the Fade.”  Philoméne was the one person Morrigan had become civil to, which Alistair still found fascinating.  A sisterhood between mages, perhaps, even though one was an apostate.

            Philoméne smiled up at her.  “I think I have had enough of it for a while.”

            “When will we know?” Isolde demanded.

            “Well,” Irving asked, “where was the boy when you saw him last?  The sensible thing to do would be to send someone to – ”

            “Mother?” a child’s voice called from the door:  Connor had come to them.  “I think I fell asleep.”  He looked around the room and added, “Who are all these people?”

            Isolde squealed and ran over to squeeze the consciousness back out of him.  It was a happy moment, or at least a quietly satisfied one, for everyone except for Philoméne and Jowan.  Ironic, since it had been his idea and her victory.

            The latter was promptly sent back to his cell to await the decision of Arl Eamon, assuming he should ever awaken.  He and Philoméne exchanged no goodbyes, but she watched him walking away flanked by guards with an unhappy look on her face.  As for her, she insisted on leaving Redcliffe at once, the reason she claimed being urgency in getting to Denerim to find the trail of Brother Genitivi and the Urn, if they could.

            That was true – it wasn’t _not_ true – but it was afternoon, and she did not even want to stay for one night and recover from her efforts first, and it was not as if they were going to get very far before they had to stop and make camp.  When they did, she threw herself down in front of the fire and stared into it, which had a surprisingly chilling effect on the whole party.  It was normally Philoméne who flitted from person to person, getting conversations started, getting everyone to relax and be personable.  Tonight, everyone seemed to just stand off in their own private spaces, watching her be distant.

            It was Morrigan, of all people, who prompted him.  “She has not quite come back to herself,” she said, poking him in the arm.  “Fix her.”

            “Fix her?  You don’t even trust me to cook eggs.”

            “True enough.  But she likes you, as little sense as that makes to me.  So talk to her.  Make one of those awful jokes she seems to like.”

            He got as far as sitting down next to Philoméne, but none of “those awful jokes” came immediately to mind.  Fortunately, she spoke first.  “It’s good Connor and Isolde got to meet some of the mages from the Tower before he has to go off with them,” she sighed, still looking into the fire.  “Perhaps that will make it a little easier.”

            “Yes.”  He poked at the logs with a stick.  “I wanted to thank you, by the way.  You took an extra risk on yourself to do the right thing, and… I’m really glad we were able to save both of them.”

            “Of course, Alistair.  I didn’t like the other choices either.”

            “Of course not.  That said… it’s not like you to just sit around like this, you know.  It’s making people nervous.  Maybe…” he scratched the back of his neck.  “Maybe you could take a walk with me for a few minutes.  Just for show.”  Or in the hopes of not _being_ the show.  Whichever.

            Either way, she nodded, let him help her up, and strolled around the edges of the encampment with him.  It was a clear night, full of stars and a nearly full moon.  The pale light set her hair nearly aglow, and without really thinking about it he took her hand in his and walked that way.  After that, even their potential audience fell out of his head.

            He came to a stop under a lone tree, not relinquishing the hand.  “So!  All the death and the running and the killing… will you miss it when it’s over?”

            She smiled warmly without laughing.  “You’ve forgotten the awkward reunions with people whose lives I’ve ruined.  That’s what I’ll miss the most.”

            Was that what she’d been telling herself by the fire?  “You’re not the one who ruined them.  And you’ve done so much good.”  He stared down at the hand he was holding, the precious point of safe contact.  It was beginning not to feel like enough.  “It’s just that I’ve… come to care about you.  A great deal.”

            Silence hung between them for a second, and terrified, he heard himself start to backpedal.  “Maybe it’s just that we’ve been through so much together.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m fooling myself.”  _Boldness, Alistair.  That’s what they told you.  Be a grown man and follow through._   He forced himself to look back up into her eyes, even though his nerves made him feel like all of his skin was trying to crawl away.  “Am I fooling myself, Philoméne?  Do you think you could ever… care for me?  A little bit?”

            She was giving him that soft look Zevran had imitated in his talk about _openings._   “Yes,” she whispered, and she squeezed his hand.

            His relief was so intense that it overrode everything else, and he stepped in and took her in his arms as if he’d done it a hundred times, and raised her lips to his, and it all happened exactly as Zevran had said it would, except that it was so soft and slow and beautiful and –

            And he remembered himself for just a moment, stopping for breath with a nervous smile.  “That wasn’t too soon, was it?  I mean – ”  But her answer was to pull him back into the kiss, and his doubts melted.  Their mouths opened together, and he began to feel very keenly aware of the curves of her body pressing against him.  What was that thing Zevran had tried to do with his tongue?  …No.  If this went any further right now, they would find themselves swept far out of their depths.  If more was going to happen, he wanted everything to be right.

            With some reluctance and several lighter kisses, he pulled away, grinning at her like an idiot.  “Maker’s breath, but you’re beautiful,” he sighed.  “We should, ah, go back to… whatever we should be doing.  Before I forget.”  But it was harder to let her go completely, so he just stood for a few moments with his arms around her waist and feeling hers around his neck, memorizing how lovely she was.

            The only thing that brought him back down to earth was the slow, silent applause with which Leliana and Zevran greeted him when they came back to the campfire.

 


	12. What She Doesn't Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their first visit to Denerim, Zevran is mortified by Philomene's lack of street smarts.

            It was stupid to come to Denerim.  This was where they _were_ , the men who wanted Alistair and Philoméne dead, the men whose contract on them Zevran was so flagrantly ignoring.  Of course Morrigan wanted to take the fight directly to them, but on this matter she was even less sensible than the Warden.  Philoméne was innocent of the world, but at least she had something of a head for strategy.

            Unfortunately her head also embraced anything that sounded magical, so they had to come to Denerim.  Arl Eamon’s wife had some fool notion about a holy relic with the power to save her dying husband, and some monk that lived here had researched it, and here they were.  Maker forbid they should have just pressured Bann Teagan to step in as regent and promise them the needed troops.  Attractive, competent, closely related to the current line, and fresh from claiming a piece of the victory against the undead in Redcliffe.  Perhaps _he_ would have liked a pretty elven bedwarmer.

            Well, the die was cast.  At least he had managed to convince Alistair and Philoméne that they should not be seen in the city together.  And undeniably, their discovery of The Pearl went a long way toward raising Zevran’s spirits:  after spending an afternoon exploiting the goodwill they had just earned there, he was more willing to accompany Philoméne on an evening taking the pulse of the rest of the city.

            Denerim was, on the whole, indifferent to them:  unfortunately, the exception revealed itself quickly in the form of a pale-haired noble who stopped them in the main square.  “You,” he said quietly to the Warden.  “I recognize you.  You were in Ostagar.  Duncan’s apprentice.”

            She inclined her head to him.  “An awful day.  My condolences for those you lost.”

            His face soured.  “How dare you.  Friends died, and good King Cailan, because the Gray Wardens betrayed us.” 

            She looked thoroughly shocked.  “But we didn’t.  You were _there_.  You must know it isn’t true.  It was Loghain who abandoned us.”  She was trying to _reason_ with an angry knight.  Maker preserve them all.

He, of course, was only growing more furious.  “And now you add slander against our regent!  I demand satisfaction, ser.”

            “Why do you call me ser?  I am female, and no knight.  _Madame_ would be better, or _mage_ , or _Warden._ Or Philoméne if you knew my name.”  She paused for a moment, as if she really expected the man to choose one of these rather than stare in silent perplexment, as indeed Zevran was doing.  Receiving no response, the Warden sighed.  “Very well.  What is it that would satisfy you?”

            Was she trying to rile him enough to make him sloppy?  Surely no one was really this innocent.  “He is asking you for a duel,” Zevran said.

            She shook her head.  “No.  There is no point to that.  I will not kill a man for misunderstanding.”

            The knight stepped in closer than Zevran liked, especially given the amount of hostility in his face.  “I demand it in the name of honor!” he hissed.

            Philoméne stood indifferent.  “My honor does not demand it.  Go, ser, and tend to your dead.”

            Zevran prepared himself to step between them as he watched the knight stew in his own bile.  But the man apparently thought himself above a scrap in the middle of the street, because he thought better of lashing out.  “By word and deed you condemn yourself, ser.”

            He began to walk away, and Zevran intended to follow him and kill him where fewer eyes were watching; but the Warden grabbed his arm to stop him.  “I said there was no point to fighting him,” she muttered.

            “But there is.  If he knows who you are, he can tell Loghain that we are here.”

            “Zevran, I do not want a good man killed because he believes a lie.”  But then she frowned in thought.  “Why was he so insistent on it?”

            “He thinks you are a traitor, obviously.”

            “But why?  He was _there!_   How can he believe what Loghain says when he was actually _there?_ ”

            Zevran sighed.  “How old were you when they took you to the Tower, my Warden?”

            “Five.”  She pouted a little.  “I suppose you’re suggesting this is something I would understand if I were more worldly.”

            “I am.”  He shrugged.  “I will follow your orders.  But it would really have made me happier if you had let me kill him for you.  I think he will be a problem.”

            “So noted.  Thank you.”

            The knight was indeed a problem, but happily, “honor” seemed to dictate that rather than report their presence to more troublesome enemies, he should lay in wait for them in the alley beside the Wonders of Thedas.  There they found him after an hour spent shopping in the square.  Philoméne made absurdly quick work of him while Zevran was killing off his retinue; but she seemed depressed afterwards, and the magical trinkets in the Wonders of Thedas did not lift her mood.

            “Perhaps we should go back to the gentleman who was selling poisons, then,” Zevran suggested, trying to be helpful.  “That always makes me feel better.”

            She smiled a little, though not quite sincerely, and gave him a bit of money.  “Get whatever you think will be useful, then.  I think I will wait in the tavern there.  Poisons are not a favorite of mine.”

            “I will be quick, then.  Stay out of mischief.”  She laughed as if he was being ironic, and he let it go.

            In conversation it quickly became evident that the poison merchant was Antivan and, in fact, a Crow.  Zevran made a point of showing no reaction, but he was alarmed, and only partly put at ease by the big man’s assurance that his Master, Ignacio, had no interest in poaching contracts, either on himself or on the Warden.

            It was probably true.  Ignacio hadn’t ended up in Denerim because of his ambition, after all.  As far as the Crows were concerned, Ferelden was more or less the wilderness.  Still, it was going to bear keeping in mind.

            By the time he went into the Gnawed Noble Tavern, Philoméne was surrounded by half a dozen ruffians, and was chattering with one of them happily while she drank.  Remarkably oblivious.

            He stepped into the middle of the knot of men, taking her casually by the shoulders, smiling as he twisted to make sure that all of them had seen the daggers on his back.  “Come along now, cousin.  They’re waiting for us.”  He made eye contact with the one he’d judged to be the leader, and let his teeth show a little.

            At least she had enough sense to whisper her objection into his ear rather than proclaim it loudly.  “You’re not my cousin.  We look nothing alike.”

            “We have the same ears,” he muttered back.  “It will be enough for them.”

            “But I left my drink,” she whined, and turned as far around as she could within Zevran’s grasp, trying to reach back for it.

            The leader picked up the abandoned cup and passed it back into her hands with a predatory smile.  “The girl wants to keep drinking with us, knife-ears,” he said to Zevran.  “Maybe you should just move along.”

            Zevran pushed her forward out of the group, and in the same movement spun to face them, raising his left arm to backhand the leader’s arm away from her.  The young man raised his arms, fingers splayed wide, clearly rethinking his options.  They hadn’t been eyeing a lone girl because they wanted a real fight.

            He walked her quietly out of the establishment before speaking.  “Well, my Warden!  You are never allowed to go into a tavern by yourself again.”

            She pouted a little.  “Nothing happened, Zev!  I don’t see what you’re getting so protective about.”

            “I know you don’t see it.  You’re used to the Tower and our little band of misfits, and you have no idea what men really are.  They intended to rob you, rape you, and leave you beaten in an alley somewhere.  If you were lucky.”

            She snorted.  “I would have – ”

            He put a finger over her lips.  “You would have used your formidable talents, yes, and shown every mercenary in Denerim that you are the woman they are looking for.  That would have been very helpful.”

            They’d stopped walking.  “You didn’t care about that in the alley.”

            “We did not leave _witnesses_ in the alley.  Would you have killed everyone in the room?  Including the barkeep?”

            She lifted a hand to her head and closed her eyes.  “Nooo,” she said.  “I suppose you’re… I don’t feel right.”

            She wavered, and he reached for her arm to hold her steady.  “Maker.  Your drink – who gave it to you?”

            “The man who… we were talking.”  She slumped into his arms.  Whatever they had given her, it was taking effect quickly.

            He sighed, cursing himself for letting her out of his sight in the first place.  Outside of battle, she was more innocent than he had been at half her age.  “Do not take drinks from strangers, my Warden,” he whispered.  “Come, we have to walk now.  Keep your feet under you for as long as you can.”

            He put her arm around his neck and his around her waist, and led her back as quickly as he could make her move toward the obscure dive they’d chosen to stay in.  As long as she could at least stumble along partially under her own power, passersby would assume she was drunk, and they would receive little notice.  Carrying her down the street unconscious would not play nearly as well.

            It should not be anything lethal in her system.  The context had been all wrong for that kind of a poisoning.  A few lost hours and a headache tomorrow, that should be all the damage done.  Of course, if it wasn’t, Alistair would try to kill him for letting it happen, and he would be right.

            Their Master had done _nothing_ to prepare them properly for the role he’d left to them.  What sort of man made such unhardened children his soldiers, and unleashed them on a world they barely understood?  What sort of man left it to a man like _Zevran_ to become their protector?

            Her legs gave out half a block away from the inn, but Leliana spotted them coming and came to support her other side.  They more or less dragged her to the room the women were staying in, where Wynne made concerned noises and Morrigan made indignant ones against both the naïveté of Wardens and the evils of men, and both swooped in to take over the care of the barely conscious elf.

            Zevran reported the events of the day to Leliana as briefly as he could, and left her to be the one to explain to Alistair what had happened.

            “And where will you be?”

            He answered with an exhausted sigh.  “At the Pearl, unwinding.  Do not expect me back for several hours.”

 

 


	13. Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a first time for everything. (sex chapter)

            The good news was that in Denerim, Zevran had a brothel to occupy his spare time, which meant that he spent much less of it trying to school Alistair in sexual matters – after he refused the invitation to come along to the Pearl, at least.

            The bad news was, well, everything else, really.  Brother Genitivi was missing, so they were no closer to finding the Urn of Sacred Ashes that would heal his foster father.  Goldanna was… not happy to see him at all.  She hated him, actually, and only paused from blaming him for killing their mother and complaining about his higher station for long enough to demand money.

            He supposed it was telling that the angriest he got was when Goldanna tried to turn her venom on Philoméne.  Oh, which called to mind the night Zevran brought her back _drugged_ , and how hard it had been to let her out of his sight since then.  And how often she was in his head now even when she _was_ out of his sight.  How he would see that bit of cleavage in her robes or the sway of her hips and get distracted and walk into things.  (And then Wynne would _laugh_ at him for it.)  How their handful of stolen kisses and that one precious moment when his hand had cupped her breast ran through his mind over and over again when he was trying to fall asleep, and he would wake up with his arms around his pillow rather than his head upon it.

            He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone, perhaps even more than he’d ever wanted any _thing._   Which was pathetic in a way, because at this point it was the thing holding him back.  He’d built it up into too important a moment to be rushed through in a cheap room at a cheap inn where half their party could walk in on them.  But then, wasn’t it also too important for a dirty pallet in a tent in the middle of nowhere?  And now, by the Maker, they were running back and forth across Ferelden like idiots, because Genitivi’s assistant had sent them into an ambush, and they had to go _back_ to Denerim to deal with him and pick up the trail, which led clear across the country to the west.

            They were losing ridiculous amounts of time.

            They were a few days out of Denerim for the second time when he realized that when they stopped losing time, it would only be because they found more danger to fling themselves into.  This wasn’t a beautiful setting with wine and flowers, but it was the best moment there was going to be.

            He wandered around the fringes of the campsite for a while, working up his nerve, trying to make the best of it.  Stars and moonlight – those were romantic, weren’t they?  Campfires?  And actually they did have some wine, somewhere.  Perhaps it would help him relax.  Or perhaps he would just keep on drinking until he was stupid enough to wreck everything.

            Maker’s breath, this wasn’t facing down a horde of darkspawn.  It was making love to a _girl._   Any grown man was supposed to be able to do that.  He should just be able to turn around and –

            And actually, she had walked up behind him while he was lost in thought.  He almost jumped when he saw her.  “Can I ask you something?” she smiled.

            “Um.  Your… your desire is my command.”

            Her smile went bashful, and it took a conscious decision to listen to her rather than try to kiss her.  “I wouldn’t call it a desire, exactly,” she said, “just a question.”  She seemed pensive now, concerned.  “Were you ever told that… that Gray Wardens should not have relationships?  I mean, because of their neutrality, because of the importance of the task.  Can they really not… not connect to people?  Because of that?”

            He frowned.  “No, I’d never heard that.  Actually, I’ve heard of a handful who had children.  We’re not the Chantry, you know.  There’s no, um, vow of celibacy, or anything.”  How interestingly this touched upon his own thoughts.  “Did someone lead you to think otherwise?”

            She thought for a moment before she answered; when she did, she was smiling and nodding as if relieved.  “I must have gotten the wrong impression from her – from ‘someone’s’ words.  I want to do this correctly, Alistair.  I know how much depends on us.  But I want to – well.  I’m glad I misunderstood.”

            The words came out of their own accord.  “I love you, Philoméne.”  And he’d taken her hands.  He almost felt like he was watching from outside himself, not controlling what happened at all.  “Oh!  That was very.  Abrupt.  I just – everything has been so awful, and you’ve never had any of the _good_ things about being a Warden, and I wish I could make everything perfect for you, but if things were perfect I would never have _met_ you, so – ”  He forced himself to stop babbling and take a deep breath.  “I’m sorry.  I think you’re driving me crazy.”

            She would have had every right to laugh at him, but she squeezed his hands and moved a little bit closer to him instead.  “Don’t be sorry.  I love you too.”

            By the time he was consciously aware of himself again, he was already kissing her deep and hard, and his hands had strayed down onto her backside to pull her body tight against his, something he had never even dared to try before.  She seemed content with it, and he felt keenly aware of every inch of flesh where they touched.

            He hadn’t gotten as far as planning how to ask, but he had to do it.  Preferably without his lips leaving her skin any more than absolutely necessary.  He moved his kisses closer to her ear.  “I want to spend the night with you,” he whispered.  No, that was too vague.  “Here, in camp.”  Not the right kind of clarification:  now she was going to point out that the function of camp was to spend the night in it, and –

            “Even though I’m an elf?” she asked.

            “What?”  He had to pull back enough to look into her eyes.  Yes, she meant it as a serious question.  He almost laughed at how mysterious the workings of her mind were.  “Yes.  _Especially_ because you’re an elf.”

            Her lovely dark eyes scanned his face, and she nodded, and kissed him again.  It took another act of will to remember that it would be better to take the next step in a tent than out in the open, unless they wanted an audience to gather and start providing them with running commentary.  He would have to let go of her for long enough to lead her to his – no, no.  His tent was a shambles, and it probably smelled like socks.  To _her_ tent.

            That was where she seemed to prefer to go anyway.  He walked with her, barely looking up from his own feet for fear of seeing someone watching them, which would make him too self-conscious to move.  Her tent smelled like old incense and old books, and he was secretly a little pleased to see some modest disarray, a few robes and letters scattered in the corners.

            The flap fell closed behind them, and they stood and looked awkwardly at each other, because the walk had broken their momentum and they had no idea how to proceed.  Eventually, she started looking around at the floor instead of at him.  “Oh.  I wish I had, um.  Let me put some of these things away.”  She threw herself down in front of the pile of letters and started moving them into a little box.

            “I could help you.”  He knelt beside her and picked up papers to hand to her.  She divided them into two groups, only one of which went into the box.  “What’s special about those?”

            “These?”  She looked down at the box for a moment.  “They’re from the mage who brought me to the Circle.  They’re about my clan.”

            “Your _clan._   You were Dalish.  How did you end up here?”

            She shrugged.  “They were killed.  This is all I have of them.”  She closed the box and sighed.  “I don’t really remember much.  But I used to wonder what my life would have been like.”

            He smiled and helped her put the box down, their fingers touching.  “They would never have let me near you.”

            That was enough to get them started again.  As their lips came together he ran his fingers through her hair, and all the pent-up desire came loose in his chest.  It compelled his hands to find the fastenings along the back of her robe and open them, then slowly stroke his fingertips down the newly exposed skin.  She shivered and rubbed lightly at his chest.  He brought his hands up to her shoulders and, with only the slightest twinge of panic, eased the robes away from her entirely.  Her flesh was warm and soft, chest moving quickly with her nervous breaths.  For a few minutes he went no further than kissing and stroking her softly, using what he hoped was a reassuring touch to show her that everything was all right.  To show both of them.

            It must have been working:  with some trepidation but also a shy little smile, she pulled on his shirt to get him to take it off.  Better still, she leaned down and planted gentle kisses across his chest, and he felt like he was burning.  That was when they both realized together that since they were sitting on the ground, her robes were still puddled around her hips, and laughed a little.  They came up onto their knees to have them off of her completely, and while he was focused on that she unfastened his pants.  But that meant she was going to see – well, of course she was.  That was rather the point, wasn’t it?  Right, then, away they went too.

            That was everything gone from between them, everything, and he swept his eyes and his hands over her shape in reverence and near disbelief.  He could feel the first tingling of the lightning that was supposed to strike him dead at any second – but all it really seemed to do, rather than kill him, was to urge him onward.  He moved in toward her slowly, and she leaned back onto her elbows; her head hung back a little and exposed her throat, so he kissed it, and she responded with a beautiful sigh.  She was too gorgeous to be real, and his head felt like it was full of bees, and – and he must remember not to hurt her.  He had absorbed that much of Zevran’s embarrassing lectures.  Before he gave in to his own desperate impulses he must explore her more thoroughly with mouth and hands, for her own good.  Darn the luck.

            He let his mouth roam over her, taking the sweet little hums she made as his guide for where to linger, as his hand went in search of the place he’d been told would need _loosening_.  His fingers were just shy of the opening when she gasped and arched back in a way that was instantly the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

            “ _That’s_ an interesting reaction,” he said with a coy smile, pretending he’d expected it.  He hadn’t been, quite:  he hadn’t been sure he should believe the assassin’s assurances of just how intensely she would respond to the right touch in the right place.  He passed two fingers back and forth slowly over the same spot, watching her writhe and feeling her grow slick under his touch, experimenting with speed and pressure – until he pressed too hard, and the happy moans turned into a squeal.  He jerked his hand back onto her thigh.  “And too much!  I’m sorry.”

            A few kisses soothed her, and he returned to his original goal.  One finger inside her, moving back and forth and just lightly massaging, coaxing the tight space open.  They were gasping for air together, and her hands moved all over him as if she were trying to take all of him in at once.  Two fingers, wrapped in a silky caress his instincts were screaming was wasted on fingers.  She parted her legs a little further for him, and he could not keep waiting.  He hoped he had done enough to make it right for her.

            The last step was trickier than he’d expected:  he kept… _missing_ , somehow.  He had to move a hand down to guide them together.  She smiled, and he had started his self-deprecating laugh when he got it right and entered her.  The laugh stopped, the movement stopped:  for one second he thought his heart might have stopped as well.  Her eyes locked on his and then began to slip out of focus, and she bit her lip.  He bit her lip too, gently, with the vague thought that he should close his eyes to kiss her, only that he could not stop looking at her.

            His movements resumed on their own, taken over by raw instinct.  She seemed less certain of how to move together, but she held him to her, stroked his back, sighed for him.  His body was all delight and thrusting, and his mind was a chaotic jumble.  _So beautiful I love everything I ever oh Maker yes please forever this._

            Not forever.  With a sudden rush the feelings built and overwhelmed him and crashed in around him, and the world went away and came back, and he couldn’t move any more.  He could feel his spent flesh softening and falling back from hers, and the urgency of their caresses fading.  But that was as much closeness as he was ready to lose.  He fell beside her and gathered her close, held her there as the last echoes whispered in his head. 

            _Please. Forever. This._

 


	14. In the Way of Destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is one thing to escape from the teasing of one's friends about one's sex life, but quite another to escape from the snares of Arl Eamon's conditional approval. (sex chapter)

            “They’ll talk, you know.  It’s what they do.”

            “Fine, so they’ll talk.”  She pressed back tight against the warmth of his chest, thinking that if it had ever occurred to her that sharing a tent would help so much against early morning chill, she would have been much more forward.

            Alistair’s arms wrapped around her as he kissed the back of her neck, and he _smelled_ like warmth and comfort, and for a while he seemed as reluctant to break the moment as she was.  He chuckled against her skin.  “You’ll say nice things, won’t you?”

            “I hadn’t decided I was going to tell them anything at all,” she grinned, turning a little so she could look at him.

            “But what if they _torture_ you?”  He started tickling her; when she shrieked, he smothered the noise with a kiss.  Kissing him back made him lose focus quickly, and the tickling stopped.

            “For that, I’m going to tell them what a villain you are.”

            “Fine.  But a villain of great sexual prowess, right?”

            She laughed.  He was so relentlessly adorable.  “I can honestly say that you are the most talented villain I have ever slept with.”

            “Hmm.”  He raised an eyebrow at her, but gave up the discussion in favor of more kissing.  That in turn could easily have led them even further, except that they could hear their campmates stirring outside, and both seemed to have the realization at the same time:  Philoméne’s tent was between Leliana’s and Zevran’s.

            “This is going to be awkward,” she whispered.  “I don’t see a way out of it.”

            “No.  We’ll just resign ourselves, then.  If it gets too bad, we throw Morrigan at them and run, right?  Is that the plan?”

            “I can’t pick her up.  I’ll just have to throw sticks.”

            They dressed and went out into the camp, and on the positive side, they were not immediately mobbed by companions demanding details.  What she had not counted on, however, was that _walking_ would be so awkward.  She didn’t seem to be put together exactly the same way below the waist any more.  Moving her legs and hips was a different proposition than it had been, and even after she sorted it out, the whole region ached.  It was disturbingly easy to imagine that she was actually walking out naked with a sign on her head that said “Deflowered” in bold black letters.

            Wynne was the first to broach the subject, off to one side in a tactful whisper.  “We’ll be doing a lot of climbing today, you know.  I have an ointment you can use so you won’t be quite as sore.”  Philoméne gulped and nodded.

            They were close to Haven, and that came to occupy everyone’s thoughts for a good while, except for the moment when they found one of the stone tables covered with blood, and Zevran laughed.  “A perfectly good sacrificial altar, and here we are just now run out of virgins!  What terrible timing.”  Leliana punched him in the arm on their behalf.

            Then again, the assassin’s ability to make jokes in the face of awful things was one of the things she was coming to value about him, because she was so prone to take things too much to heart.  That, and his ability to pull her _and_ Alistair back into the present – which was what saved them when they found the Guardian of the Urn, and the spirit confronted her with Jowan, and Alistair with his guilt over living when Duncan was dead.  When they were both drowning in their own regrets and all they could give each other were vague noises about doing their best and not being at fault, it was Zevran who asked them both what the point was of looking back at all.

            She might have even admired that about him, how guilt was simply not part of his world – except that there was one second when even Zevran was shaken.  One target, one name that the elf did not allow to leave the Guardian’s lips, so quickly and angrily did he give his answer.

            He refused to discuss it further – fair enough, since as it was, she was grateful not to be answering questions she knew he was holding back about her and Alistair – and in the Gauntlet their minds were soon back on more urgent business.

            Ghosts and riddles and fights and fire and… and the Urn was real, and the Ashes were theirs.  She could feel the cool, open air of sanctity all around them, subtly different from the simple mundane cold of being up on a mountain.

            They rushed back to Redcliffe with a renewed urgency, pushing themselves hard enough to have little time for either talk or anything else.  Even she and Alistair did not spend the usual amount of time chatting or touching, so focused were they on reaching the Arl.

            The miracle cure worked, and soon the Arl was well enough to give his saviors an audience.  Philoméne found it peculiar how much older he looked than Isolde, who seemed much closer to Bann Teagan’s age.  (For that matter, it was odd how much younger Teagan seemed than his brother.  The very oldest and youngest of the family, perhaps; or perhaps the poisoning had aged Eamon prematurely.)

            She’d assured Alistair that his foster father must love him, especially after she’d stumbled across the repaired amulet in the Arl’s desk on their previous visit.  She’d been sure it must be true:  and yet he did not greet Alistair with any special warmth, or even any acknowledgment at all separate from the rest of them.  Bann Teagan had at least done that much, so she was shocked by the coolness of the Arl.  Alistair, for his part, stood quiet and tense behind her as she, Eamon, and Teagan discussed the threats from the darkspawn and Loghain.

            It was in considering how to deal with Loghain as a pretender to the throne that the Arl finally mentioned his foster child.  And then, it was as “someone with a stronger claim to the throne.”

            Even Teagan seemed unsettled, and Philoméne was starting to get angry.  “Alistair would make a terrible king,” she said.

            “I’m right _here,_ ” he hissed over her shoulder.

            Eamon was adamant.  “He is the only one left who can claim the throne by blood.  Teagan or I could make a claim by marriage, but that is no better than Loghain can do.”

            She could feel Alistair’s growing defensiveness at her back, waves of discomfort at being thrown back so dramatically into the role of rebellious child.  “Does anyone care what _I_ want?” he snapped.

            She was turning to assure him that she did when Eamon drove in the last nail.  “This is your responsibility, Alistair.  If you will not do this, I will have to side with Loghain for the sake of Ferelden.  Is that what you want?”

            “I.”  He bowed his head, his cheeks reddening with impotent fury, trapped.  “No, my lord.”

            She turned back toward the Arl, her eyes narrowed, full of sudden determination.  Alistair would never be King.  Somehow, both Eamon and Loghain must fail.

            If he saw that she had decided to set herself against him, he gave no sign.  He outlined his plan, in which she and her party would gather the rest of the Wardens’ allies, and then Eamon would call the Landsmeet, and use Alistair’s blood claim to challenge Loghain directly.  He asked her for her _blessing._

            Not Alistair; not the man he was supposed to be making the King.  Only her.  But she needed to gather her other allies regardless, and she needed to challenge Loghain and to keep Eamon’s support at least for the moment.  Perhaps by the time the Landsmeet actually happened, she would have a way out for Alistair.

            So she agreed, and he cheerfully assigned them all rooms for the night so that they could rest properly before they headed off again.

            Alistair knew where they all were, of course; and he managed to arrange it so that she was the last one left when they reached her room.  When she stepped in, he waited politely at the door as if he might excuse himself, but she pulled him in after her and closed it.

            He stroked her arms and sighed.  “Do you really think I’d be a terrible king?”

            “Yes.”  She touched his cheek in consolation.  “You didn’t even want to lead three Warden recruits.  You’d be miserable trying to lead a country.  You’re much better off when you’re second in command.”

            “You’re right.”  He put his arms around her waist and leaned his head against her shoulder.  “Though I’m not sure it’s going to matter.”

            “I assure you that it will.  I’ll come up with something.”

            He laughed a little.  “Of all people, maybe you actually could.  Something completely sideways and – ”

            She put a hand over his mouth.  “My turn.  You know that it really _wouldn’t_ be better if you had died instead of Duncan, don’t you?  It certainly wouldn’t be better for _me._ ”

            His eyes were soft, and he brushed his lips against her cheek.  “No?”

            “No.  I love you.”

            A gentle kiss.  “Really?  You haven’t thought better of it now that you’ve had some time to reflect?”  She shook her head, smiling, and he smiled back.  “I have you completely fooled, then.  Well, keep believing I’m loveable.  Let’s see how long I can pull this off.”

            “It’ll be longer if you say it back.”

            “Of course I love you.”  His lips were working their way slowly down the side of her neck between words.  “My life’s ambition is to be your pet Templar.”

            “Well, in that case.”  She still felt shy saying it, but she tried not to blush.  “I’ve never slept in such a big room by myself.  I’m used to… having someone there to watch over me.”

            She could feel the pleasure already humming under his skin.  “Then obviously I need to stay.”

            She made her sweetest face and nodded.  “Obviously.”

            “Do I need to put on the armor?  You know, to make it proper.”

            “I’d think that would be uncomfortable to sleep in.”

            “Oh, I’ll be sleeping myself?  I thought I was going to be here as a Templar.  You know.  Making sure you don’t bewitch the sheets, checking the wardrobes for demons.”  He put on his “evil” face, which was really just an odd little grin and a particularly amused gleam in his eye.  “Watching you sleeeeeep.”

            Sometimes he made her head spin.  She grabbed him by the back of the neck.  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when you do that.  If you don’t _want_ to stay, then – ”

            “No, no!  Of course I do.  Maker’s breath, I never expect you to take me so seriously.”  He petted her hair.  “When I start sounding like an idiot, just tell me to shut up.”  He paused not an inch from kissing her, distracted by a new thought.  “Did you even _speak_ the common tongue when they brought you to the Tower?  Is that why you can’t tell when I’m joking?”

            “Shut up,” she whispered, and pressed her lips against his.  Once she had him locked into a proper kiss, he gave himself up to it with a loud sigh and pulled her tight against him, hands already roaming up and down her back.  His weight as he leaned into her started forcing her backward – it was like dealing with a mabari – until she felt her legs hit the side of the bed, and they fell onto it together.

            That brought no pause for comment; just a shift to rubbing at her breasts through the fabric of her robes.  A distinct improvement.  He adjusted slightly to one side, bringing a knee up between hers, and the pressure of his thigh against her made her feel restless and needy.  She rocked her hips toward him, closing her legs a little around his, and her hands slid down onto his muscular backside.  Alistair responded with a happy moan and a hand on her thigh, pulling the hem of her robe up to expose her leg.

            She wanted to – she had vague, half-formed ideas of what she wanted to do, but it needed to lead toward making love to him again.  Her left leg bent up to bring them even closer, and she tentatively inched her left hand around his hip.  A pause to gather her courage, and she brought it the rest of the way forward.  He was hard against her palm, and he shifted back and forth against it, making soft, desperate noises in her ear as his tongue caressed her earlobe.

            With a sudden fit of urgency he pulled down on the neckline of her robe, and then on the shoulders when the fabric did not give as much as he wanted, until her breasts were exposed.  His mouth latched onto one nipple and fingers onto the other, and he pulled at both of them until she rolled her head back and groaned louder than she had dared in the tent.  That brought a little breathless laugh out of him, as did her growl of protest when she realized that now she could not move her arms to the sides, nor much above his waist.  She tugged up on his shirt so she could at least touch the skin of his lower back.

            It was fascinating, actually, watching the hesitation born of his inexperience melting away.  Once her hands were on his bare skin, he just touched his teeth to her breast, a soft touch and not yet a bite, and he reached down to unfasten his pants and lower them just enough to free himself.  One hand snaked under her panties and stroked her, his touch staying gentle this time.  Waves of pleasure shot up her spine and out through the rest of her body.  She struggled against the partial restraint of her robes, and her moans grew into what could only be considered howls.

            His fingers shifted, nudging the last bit of fabric out from between them, and he slid into her slowly.  He hummed and licked at her mouth, his eyes drifting shut.  Her leg was still bent, and they could both feel instantly the extra depth the new angle gave them:  she bent it a little more, and he took hold of her thigh to keep it there.

            It was better than the first time.  There wasn’t the same overstretched soreness, and the angle felt nicer.  In fact – yes, if she rocked her hips with him it was wonderful.  For his part, Alistair seemed to take more control of his speed.  She lovingly stroked the parts of him she could reach, and craned her neck toward him and held his lip between her teeth to keep him in their kiss.

            She could feel him panting.  His hands slid down her hips, came up to cup her breasts, curled over the top of her head.  One stayed there as the other found her hand and twined fingers.  He sucked at the side of her neck and whispered into her ear, barely coherent.  “Love you.  Ah.  Maker.”  All at once he was deeper, and she arched, limbs locked around him, and his eyes were deep wells of amazement.

            At first she wanted him to stay on top of her, holding her, indefinitely; but after a few moments she began to notice how much heavier than her he was, so it was a relief when he shifted off just to the side of her.  On the other hand, that drew their attention to the awkwardness of laying across the bed sideways and half-dressed.

            “We seem to run into issues with clothing,” he mused, fondling her gently rather than pulling her robes back into place.

            She smiled.  “I’m sure we will overcome that with practice.”

            “Hmm.  I’m willing to keep trying if you are.”

            She grabbed his hand to her lips and gave it a quick kiss.  “That said, for now we’d be better off dressed or undressed.”

            He gave her a cautious look.  “Dressed, I fear.  I’m… not sure I should spend the night in your room, now that I think about it.”

            But that was mystifying, bordering on hurtful.  “Why not?  Afraid we’ll accidentally get more practice in before morning?”

            He grinned for a second.  “If only.”  Then a sigh and wistfulness.  “No, I’m afraid of offending the Arl.”

            Now she really was getting angry.  She sat up and glowered at him, ignoring any harm hanging partway out of her clothes might do to her dignity.  “Why would you be afraid of that?  Am I _beneath_ you when we are in Redcliffe?  Is it because I’m a mage, or because I’m an elf?”

            His eyes rounded, and he grabbed both of her hands.  “No!  No no no, that’s not it at all.  Maker, Philoméne, I wish you’d never had to learn that _anyone_ thought that way.  Please don’t think that I do.”

            She didn’t, really.  She threw one leg over him and sat down on his legs.  “Then what is it?”

            “It’s…” he trailed off, unable to find the words, and looked up at her full of frustration.  “It’s _Arl Eamon._ ”

            “Alistair,” she said quietly, and bent down over him, leaning her weight onto her hands at either side of his head.  “The first time we came to Redcliffe, you told me that you were not a Templar and not a prince, only a Warden.  Is that still what you want?  Or do you want to be Eamon’s heir to the throne?”

            “I don’t.  I want to be a Gray Warden.  But – ”

            “No.  Stop there.  You are a Warden, and you abdicated control of the Wardens to me.  So Eamon has no say in the matter, and if he thinks differently he will have to take it up with me.”  She dropped onto her elbows, her face just above his.  “And _I_ want you to stay here.  I want you to take off your clothes and get into bed, and stop worrying about pleasing people who are not worried about pleasing you back.”

            He seemed bewildered, but he was also smiling.  “You’re amazing, you know.”

            “Yes.  Be grateful that I like you.”  She poked him playfully in the forehead.

 


	15. Life's Little Disappointments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All her life, Philomene has clung to her sense of Dalish identity. As it happens, the Dalish are inclined to disagree with her.

            The last thing to be done before they left Redcliffe was to meet with Arl Eamon over what was to become of Jowan.  Philoméne looked depressed, eyes weary and shoulders slumped, as she stood beside Alistair waiting for the unfortunate blood mage she’d once considered her friend to be brought for judgment.

            “I don’t see why he wants to make this my decision,” she murmured to him when the Arl seemed inattentive.  “It shouldn’t _be_ my decision.”

            “I know.”  He took her hand and squeezed it gently.  It was ironic, how Eamon took it on himself to make huge decisions about Alistair’s life even now that he was a Warden, and yet given a decision that was completely within his own authority, he was looking to Philoméne.  “Ironic” in the sense of being maddening, anyway.  Perhaps he saw it as a way of acknowledging her strength and her wisdom.  Of course that implied he’d never seen cause to acknowledge either in Alistair, but that would not be a completely surprising thought.

            Arl Eamon’s eyes strayed down for just a second onto their joined hands, but then the guards brought Jowan, who looked even more than usually defeated and sad.  Even Alistair’s heart went out to him, a little, before he remembered that the man was here for betraying both the Tower and Alistair’s lover and then poisoning his foster father.

            “Warden,” Eamon said, “I seek your counsel on what to do with this man.  Traitors are normally punished by death, but this is a complicated situation, and I cannot claim to be impartial.”

            Philoméne hung her head.  “I think that what led him was not malice but weakness.  I think that he tried, in his way, to atone for the harm he did to you.”  She sighed loudly.  “I once considered him my friend.”

            “You speak nobly and with compassion.  And yet you cannot think that we should simply let him go.”

            This time it took her a moment to respond.  “No,” she said, very quietly.  “This was not his first offense.  That also means that yours is not the only justice he is called to face.”  She turned away toward Jowan, and Alistair could hear sorrow creeping into her voice.  “What is your thought, Jowan?  Would you rather die here or in the Tower?”

            “I began in the Tower, and that is where I should end, I think.  Perhaps they would still think it enough to make me Tranquil.  The thought of having my emotions wiped away… bothers me less than it used to.”

            She turned her head back toward the Arl sharply, and stood for a few seconds with her eyes closed.  “Let the mages have him,” she whispered.  “Theirs is the first claim.”

            Arl Eamon nodded grimly, and Jowan was escorted from the room again.  Eamon transitioned to wishing them well in their journey without a second thought, and apparently without noticing that Philoméne still had her eyes shut and now was also clenching her fists, willing herself not to show more grief than that.

            She was silent going back out to gather the rest of their party, and once it was gathered, the only words she said were, “The Dalish next.”  There were looks of concern back and forth between several of them, but throughout the first day’s travel no one pried into her personal discomfort.  When they stopped, Alistair and Zevran took on the main burden of setting up camp, which meant that Zevran was finally free to start asking invasive questions about how the sex was progressing.

            That was when Alistair realized that alongside the part of him that was mortified as a Templar and proper gentleman was another part that was desperate to tell someone how amazing it was.  Zevran was a very receptive audience, eager for as much detail as Alistair could bring himself to provide, and full of suggestions both helpful and embarrassing.  He had to be stopped from providing herbal tonics and from acting out various styles of caress on Alistair’s chest, but some of the positions he described sounded interesting.

            By the time all the tents were up and Alistair looked around for Philoméne, she was off in Morrigan’s tucked-away corner, and they were laughing.

            Mixed feelings, there.  Philoméne laughing was charming, and a relief after seeing her moody all day.  But _Morrigan_ laughing innately made him nervous, and that kept him from approaching them.  (Not that he ever went into Morrigan’s territory if he could help it anyway.  She would _do things_ to him if she caught him by himself.  He was sure of it.)

            Eventually, Philoméne came away to him and gave him a little hug, visibly more relaxed.  He kissed her hairline on the top of her head.  “I’m glad you’re cheering up, but – you didn’t have to give her your _soul_ , did you?  Promise her your firstborn?”

            “You’re too hard on her, you know.  She’s a lot like me.”

            He had to laugh at that.  “Right, let’s see.  Elf, human.  White hair, black hair.  Tower, Wilds.  Sweet and innocent, mean and bitchy.  Good, evil.  The similarities are uncanny.”

            “Mage without a family, raised apart from the rest of civilization and caught out trying to save a society she barely understands.  Except that I was raised by the Circle, and she may as well have been raised by wolves.  She’s told me about Flemeth, you know.  I wouldn’t want to trade places with her.”

            “So the two of you bond over the fact that you’re not the rest of us?”

            She shrugged.  “If you like.  Just… try not to fight with her so much.  It makes me uncomfortable.”

            “She starts it.”  He squeezed her.  “All right, I’ll do my best.”

            The following days were refreshingly uneventful – or, from a different perspective, tedious and wearying – as they involved nothing but putting up and taking down camp, with hours of walking or sleeping in between.  They both felt too modest to consistently share a tent for the night, although there were wonderful, heart-melting visits.  She was growing more talkative about herself and her background, and as they got closer to the Brecilian Forest, she regarded the prospect of finding the Dalish with a mixture of eagerness and dread that reminded him of going to meet Goldanna.

            And that made him nervous.

            The clan they ultimately found was not hers.  She’d not expected to find hers:  the letters describing her people had called it very unlikely that enough of them had survived to sustain themselves as a clan.  She had not, however, expected such a cool greeting.

            “You are not Dalish,” the woman guarding the Dalish encampment said to Philoméne.  “What business do you have with our clan?”

            Philoméne looked confused.  “I am Dalish, although I am dressed in mage’s robes.  But I am here on behalf of the Gray Wardens.”

            The guard studied her for a moment, then shook her head.  “You have the accent and the bearing of a flat-ear, and your marks are improper.  You are not of the high blood.”

            “The _high blood?_ ”  Philoméne frowned, and her tone became indignant.  “If you are better than the city elves by mere accident of where you were born and to whom, then so am I.  I am Piloumenne, and I was an apprentice to the Keeper of the Moon Halla Clan.”

            A moment of silence.  “You know something that most outsiders do not, then.  But it must have been long ago, because your voice has the wrong melody, and you did not have your marks from the Dalish.  You wear an imitation, and you cannot be regarded as a grown Dalish woman.”  She raised a hand before Philoméne could protest again.  “But be at peace.  You will be accepted as a cousin, if not a sister.  It is our hope that one day, all of the lost will return to us.”

            With that, the guard led them back toward her Keeper.  Philoméne walked brooding and muttering under her breath.  “Flat-ear.  The _lost._ ”

            The pattern was the same throughout their interactions with the Dalish:  toward Philoméne and Zevran they were coolly polite but distant, and with the others they took care not to speak directly at all.  Philoméne spoke at particular length with Lanaya, the Keeper’s First, who it turned out had not been born among the Dalish.  At first Alistair thought this must mean that living among them must be more important than place of birth, until Lanaya described how much struggle she’d had to reach her position because, even coming into the clan as a child, she was still seen as an outsider.

            Philoméne remained superficially pleasant as she dealt with the clan’s – _smith_ wasn’t the right word, he didn’t have a smithy, and he made everything out of _wood_ … _craftsman?_ – and even took a moment to say encouraging words to a young couple, for which Lanaya scolded her, saying it illustrated that she didn’t think like the Dalish.  But Alistair could see the tension building.  She’d already taken a lot of strain in the last couple of months, and he was worried about how much more she would take before she lost her resilience.

            They camped a respectable distance away, and after the tents were pitched he encouraged her to sit by the fire, where he rubbed her shoulders.  “I’m sorry it wasn’t what you wanted,” he told her.  “I know how that is.”

            As she relaxed under his hands, she sighed and pouted.  “It shouldn’t matter so much.  I was only _five._   I barely remember what it was like.  I don’t know why this bothers me.”

            “I do,” Zevran interjected, taking a seat across the fire from them with a wine bottle in one hand and goblets in the other.  “You thought that here, of all places, you would be treated as an equal.  But now you find that you have only gone from _knife-ear_ to _flat-ear._   It is disappointing.”  He offered the goblets to them.  Philoméne took them and held them while Zevran poured; then he took the remainder of the bottle for himself.

            “Yes,” she said, “I suppose that’s it.”

            Zevran nodded.  “So many city elves dream of running away to the Dalish.  I did myself, when I was a boy.  I fancied that I was Dalish because my mother was.”

            “Was she?  I didn’t know.”

            The assassin grinned.  “I did not tell you.  She ran away to Antiva to be with my father, but then he died of some disease, and she ended up in a whorehouse until I was born.”  He glanced into the fire.  “And then she died.”  He took a swig of wine.  “The whores raised me until I was seven, and then I was sold to the Crows.  But there was one time I managed to run away, and I came looking for the Dalish.  I met with the same enthusiasm you did.”

            Alistair thought about all the times he’d complained about how he had suffered as the foster son of an Arl and then a Templar in training, and felt very sheepish.  “Maker, Zevran.”

            But the elf shrugged.  “It does no good to dwell on such things.  Tonight I have fire, and wine, and pretty things to look at.”  He smirked and raised the bottle to them.

            “But it’s not fair,” Philoméne said.  “They assume they are superior by blood, and then if we prove that wrong, we are still lesser.  Not just foreign, _lesser._   But so is Lanaya.  There is no winning with them.  I don’t….”  She paused to reflect for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was quietly.  “I don’t know why I’ve bothered to carry those letters all this way.  I’m not Dalish.  And I can’t be a Circle mage any more.  I don’t know what I am.”

            Zevran looked at her with a puzzled expression.  “You are a Gray Warden, I thought.”

            Alistair smirked and rubbed Philoméne’s shoulders a little harder.  “I could swear I’ve heard that sentiment before, somewhere.  From someone.  Oh, wait, that was completely different, wasn’t it?  Because that was _my_ identity crisis.”

            She turned her head partway toward him.  “You are decreasing your odds of being invited into my tent this evening, you know.”  But she was smiling.

            “Oh dear.”

            “Then may I offer myself as a substitute?” Zevran asked her.

            “No,” she said.

            “Alistair?”

            “No.”

            Zevran gave a deep, false sigh.  “Ah well.  Just me and the wine, I suppose.”

 


	16. Sitting in a Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How many people can Philomene lure into a tree?

            The Brecilian Forest was beautiful when it wasn’t attacking them or spewing forth werewolves.  There was a certain intimacy that came from not seeing as far as the horizon, enfolded in trees and hills.  They’d taken the day to stop and refresh themselves, and Alistair was just wandering, taking in the pretty landscape.  He began to develop a sense of being watched, but his instincts didn’t seem to read it as a threat:  he assumed that another of his party must be nearby.

            “Hey.”

            Philoméne’s voice, from higher off the ground than it should be.  When he spotted her, she was halfway up into a grand, spreading tree, sprawled across one of its great limbs.

            “What are you doing?” he grinned.

            “I’m in a tree.”

            “Well, yes, I gathered that much.”

            She sighed, letting an arm drop and dangle between them.  “It looked like trees in storybooks, you know.  The kind you’d find a treasure under, or fairies, or that would have playing children climbing all over them.”

            He did know.  “So you thought you’d have a go at climbing all over it yourself.  Or are you one of the fairies?”

            “Don’t you wonder?  Everyone acts like I’m so peculiar.  I’m normal to _me._ ”

            “You’re perfect,” he said, and he meant it, and he didn’t care how syrupy he got with her because she would accept it.  It _did_ look like a good climbing tree, and there was another limb near hers that looked like it would bear his weight.  He had a bit more struggle with making his way through the leafy branches, because of his size, but soon he was sitting facing her, his legs hanging down.

            She giggled at him.  “Hello, then.”  They shared their green canopy together silently for a moment, and then she started musing aloud.  “This is very relaxing.  It’s one of the few things I think I remember from when I was little, actually.  But then there were all those years in the Tower, and – well!  Not much tree climbing there, of course.  Calisthenics, mostly.  I wasn’t sure I’d actually get up here.”  Her eyes closed, and she smiled.  “I loved that you gave me a flower.  I still have it.”

            There was no kissing her from here:  they’d both fall out of the tree if he tried.  “Well, I loved giving you a flower.  I’d give you another one, but mostly around here it just seems to be leaves.  So… am I your pet Templar yet?  Officially?”

            “Well, _yes._   I thought we’d settled that.  Of course – ” She gave him a wry look.  “There’s two sides to the Templars, aren’t there?  You might be here to protect me, but you might be here to _control_ me.  I’ve heard stories about Templars, you know.”

            “I know.  So have I.”  He knew she was only teasing him, but the idea still made him vaguely uncomfortable.  It had been another of the reasons he had wanted to avoid becoming a full Templar, the stories of those who had gone too far, who had violated the trust.  “I would never do that, Philoméne.”

            A coy smile.  “Not even a little bit, in fun?  I could pretend to be an apostate, and you could subdue me.”

            The thought made him blush a little.  “No, I don’t think I could.  Not even pretending.  I would hate myself instantly.”

            “You’re sweet.  I – ”

            There was laughter under them:  he’d gotten too focused on her to notice Zevran approaching.  “There you are, my Warden!” he called up to them.  “And proving your heritage so cleverly.  I defy anyone to say that you were not Dalish.”  His head cocked to the side, and one corner of his mouth twisted up a little.  “You, Alistair, are a little more surprising.  Perhaps Templars find their mages up in trees more often than I think?”

            “Happens all the time,” Alistair sighed.  “Morrigan alone I’ve had to fetch down from trees three times.”

            With a quick grace that Alistair should have found less surprising, Zevran sprang up through the boughs to find his own seat, managing to find a place where he could sit on one while leaning against another.

            “Very nice,” he told the elf, grudgingly, “although I’d have thought tree climbing a little whimsical for the likes of you.”

            “Not at all!  In places such as this, the right perch is a wonderful vantage point from which to spring upon a target by surprise.  Climbing and hiding are important job skills for the likes of me, as you put it.”

            “ _Hiding._   You must not have thought much of us, then, since you were right out in the middle of the road.”

            “Pft.  A completely different setting, dear Alistair.  There was _one_ tree to be had, and what were the odds that you would have passed right underneath it?  And in any case, as you will remember, it was rotten, and more good for cutting off the road behind you.  No, on a road through the hills, where one hides is behind a turn in the road.”

            “If you say so.”

            Philoméne came to his aid.  “I don’t believe there’s historically a great deal of stealth involved in being a Gray Warden.  I haven’t noticed that the darkspawn are especially, ah, perceptive.  Have you?”

            Zevran smiled.  “No, I have not, in fact.  I was not insulting your young man, my Warden.  We all have our areas of expertise, yes?  I, myself, would do very poorly at barreling through a wall of enemies on pure muscle, or at cooking them from the inside out.  This is the benefit of teamwork.  Even Crows know this.”

            “Don’t forget about picking locks,” Leliana’s melodic voice added from the ground.  “You’re not very good at that, either, in spite of what you told her when she spared you.”  She hoisted herself up into the bottommost crook between two limbs and stood there, casual.  Alistair wondered how many more of them the poor tree was going to bear before it changed its mind about being the kind of tree that was full of evil spirits and attacked them.

            “As you begged her to do, Leliana,” Zevran grinned.

            “I don’t remember _begging._ ”

            “And what does that matter anyway?  You are so marvelous with openings.  I could never have competed with you.”

            Leliana gave him a coquettish look.  “Zevran!  You say the nicest awful things.  Though I imagine you have conquered your share of openings.”

            Even Alistair snickered.  Ever since Zevran had joined the group, more and more of Leliana’s deliberate show of purity had fallen away, and now, given the right mood, she was positively saucy.  Still clearly devout, yes, but the fact that she’d had a more colorful life before her time in the Chantry was increasingly obvious.

            “And yet,” Zevran responded with a loud, false sigh, “the ones that matter most remain closed to me.  All those songs about the pitiless beauties from Orlais are true, it seems.  I will have to sing one.”

            Leliana’s eyes rounded.  “Please don’t sing.”

            “But you have already refused me the right to express my longings in poetry.  What am I going to have left?”

            Philoméne cleared her throat.  “This seems to be turning into a private conversation.”

            Zevran grinned at her.  “Why not just enjoy the free show?  That is what we do.”

            The mage’s cheeks took on a bit of color.  “Oh.”  She glanced over at Alistair, alarmed.  “Are we like that?”

            “No,” Leliana assured her.  “You’re more like this.”  She made a face even more blankly pure than the one she had worn for her role as a Chantry novitiate, and she smoothed her voice into an imitation of Philoméne’s soft cadence that sounded almost entranced.  “Oh, Alistair.  I am so innocent that I see _you_ as worldly.  Will you protect me even though I could burn my own enemies to a crisp with my thoughts?”

            Zevran gazed down at her with an absurdly poignant look, holding out a leaf he had plucked from the branch behind him.  “I found this perfect leaf in my backpack three weeks ago.  I want you to have it, my love.”

            “This is all _very_ helpful,” Alistair growled.  “Keep it up, and see if I let you keep helping with anything else.”

            Zevran held up his hands in placation, but Philoméne raised her eyebrows.  “I beg your pardon?  What does that mean?”

            The assassin laughed.  “My Warden, do you think that men are born knowing how to make women happy?  I am paying you back very handsomely for my life, I think.”

            Now she was quite red, and her eyes narrowed a little as she stared at Alistair.  He tried not to panic.  “Philoméne, please don’t be upset,” he murmured.  “It was just to – I needed to know – to make sure I – um – ”

            She cast her eyes down toward the ground.  A little calmer, at least.  Not about to yell, or cry.  “This is not where I want to talk about it,” she said.

            “No, of course not,” he stammered.  “Not in front of – Morrigan.”

            They all turned to look at the latest arrival, who was walking toward them with arms crossed and a bemused sneer on her face.  “Well!  Wynne is curious to know where you all are.  Up a _tree_ , apparently.  Did wild dogs attack?”  She pretended to look around for them.

            “I know you’re not going to listen to me,” Alistair sighed, “but this really isn’t as stupid as it looks.”

            But Zevran was having none of that.  “Ah, you have found us, Morrigan!  Come up and wait with us for the others.  The last one to find us is the loser, you see.  My money is on Sten.”

            Leliana giggled in delight.  “I would not have thought you knew many childhood games, Zevran.”

            “Oh, do you know that one?  I thought I made it up just now.”

            “’Tis not as stupid as it looks, Alistair?” Morrigan cooed.

            “What difference does it make?” Leliana smiled.  “Join us anyway.  Lighten up a little.”

            “You could turn into a cat,” Philoméne added softly, and she actually looked hopeful.  “You could climb right past us.”

            “I could, had I the desire.”  Morrigan looked up into the branches for a moment, a whisper less of disdain in her face than usual.  But then she looked away, arms crossed tighter.  “This is ridiculous.  It will be time for dinner soon.  Come along, children.”

            She walked away, and the sense that it was appropriate for four adults to relax together up in a tree went with her.  Too bad, really.

 


	17. Marked for Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Politics in Orzammar are maddening, but having your brain turned inside out by demons is more so. An old friend catches up with Philomene. (torture chapter)

            Zathrian was dead, and the blood feud should have died with him.  No one else was left alive who could remember the original grievance – as awful as it might have been, no one was left who could justly punish or be punished for it.  So when the werewolves turned back into men, Philoméne left them to seek out their fortunes, hoping they would be able to carve a place for themselves where they could safely complete their self-transformation into a civilized people.

            But still there were Dalish bands hunting them as Philoméne and her friends made their way back out of the forest.  Still determined that the wild men were criminals with a curse living within their blood, guilty of crimes none of them had been alive to see, let alone commit.

            She was happy to leave the Dalish behind.  In fact, on the long trek across the country toward their last ally, she was compelled one night to ask Zevran how he could still stand to wear the Dalish embroidered gloves she had found and given him.  He answered with a shrug and a placid smile.  “They have nothing to do with the Dalish for me.  They remind me of my mother, and the happy part of my childhood.  I thought that was why you gave them to me.  Was it not?”

            “Of course,” she answered, vaguely ashamed, and dropped the subject.

            The mountain pass outside Orzammar was much colder than anywhere else she had ever been.  She had not thought as far as buying herself a winter cloak – although everyone else apparently had, even Zevran – so, rather than take Alistair’s cloak when he offered it and leave him freezing instead, she walked up to the gate into the mountain wrapped in a blanket.  Soon enough they would be in the city, anyway, and surely there it would be warmer.

            Naturally, nothing could ever be that simple.  The way was barred to outsiders, and competing for the guard’s attention was a man screaming about his orders from _King Loghain._   Alistair was instantly livid; Philoméne tried to ignore it as she made her own case to the dwarves, but by the time they’d acknowledged the right of the Wardens to present their treaty to the Assembly, and the fool set his men to attack, all the while complaining about the offense to _King Loghain_ , she was more than willing to return the violence in kind.

            It was not quite enough for Alistair, who stood fuming over the bodies.  “ _King_ Loghain.  He’s not even bothering to call himself a regent.  His daughter the Queen is still _alive_.”

            Philoméne touched his shoulder.  “I know.  But the Blight has to come first.  We have to focus.”

            He sighed heavily, hugged her, nodded that they could proceed.

            Her first sight of Orzammar was horrifying.  Yes, she had spent time underground going up the mountain to get the Urn, but that was a mere series of passages.  Orzammar was a _city_ , once one of many if the stories were true, the portal to an entire world in which there was no sky.  Light and heat came from floes of molten rock, and there were no living things in sight except for dwarves, all shorter than her and broader than Alistair and hairier than dogs, and all presently shouting at each other and coming to near blows over some problem of succession to the throne.

            Harrowmont or Bhelen:  the question was being argued everywhere they went.  As they wandered the merchant district, restocking their provisions and getting a feel for the social and political climate, they heard a wealth of rumors about both dwarves.  Bhelen was the proper but usurped heir, a bold reformer who wanted to reach out to the surface world – or he was a would-be tyrant who had carved a bloody path through his own family trying to get the crown.  Harrowmont was the properly _appointed_ heir to the dead King for whom he had been a chief advisor, a steady and honorable politician – or he was a conservative and ineffectual leech whose only real success had been to poison his ruler and take his place.  Everyone admitted that the choice between the two was hardly clear, and yet everyone took a side and defended it adamantly.

            Not that this was nearly the most troubling quality she found in the dwarves.  She had thought that the human separation between noble and commoner by blood was illogical; but she could never have even imagined the rigidity of caste in Orzammar.  The boundaries were literally carved in stone, and for the truly unfortunate, carved into their faces as well.  Here, perhaps, there would never have been a King Loghain, but it was only because there could never have been a _Teyrn_ Loghain, or even a Loghain who stood as a hero against Orlais.

            Everything was set into place for them, immoveable.  When they were born, they were already dead.  It made her vaguely sick.

            Because of this, when Bhelen’s second first approached her, she was of a mind to hear him out, despite the warnings Duncan had given her about Wardens staying out of politics as much as possible.  Vartag was waiting for them in the entryway to the Assembly, bearing greetings from Bhelen and asking for a “show of loyalty” before he would meet with her personally to discuss his support for the Wardens’ treaty.  He wanted letters taken to two of Harrowmont’s supporters suggesting that he had committed fraud against them:  Vartag would not say where they had come from.

            It was too soon to commit so much, especially without investigation.  “I will remember your greeting and your offer,” she said politely, handing back the papers, “but I can make no promise until I have had time to learn more about the situation.”

            She thought it a perfectly civil response, but Vartag’s face went vicious.  “I warn you,” he whispered, “you will not find Prince Bhelen in such a generous mood a second time.”

            With that he was off – and with that, almost unconsciously, she decided that if pressed, she would have to support Harrowmont.  She could not place her trust in someone so quick to resort to threats.

Apparently she would, in fact, be forced to support someone:  the Assembly was in such disarray over the succession that they refused to hear other business until it was decided.  Harrowmont, too, spoke to her only through a second; for him, she was to prove her intentions by acting as his champion in some kind of ritual combat.  The Proving.

It was an odder request, but it was attended by no threats, and she saw little harm in it, so she agreed.  There was time to fill, though, before the date of the event, and she was beginning not to relish the extra time spent in this gigantic hole.  When the smith’s daughter Dagna accosted her with stories of her dream of studying at the Tower, Philoméne found herself offering to go at once and speak to Irving on her behalf.

Alistair did not pursue the question until they were out and on their way, she wrapped in a blanket again and he trying to make a fire warm enough to keep them through a night on the snowy mountainside.  “This is going to take us days,” he muttered.  “What happened to that idea about _focus?_ ”

“You can’t compare running a message to overthrowing a pretender to the throne.  This is minor.”  She sighed, and watched the puff of mist rise in front of her face.  “And it gets us out of that place to catch our breath.”

“You’re really hating it down there, aren’t you?”

“I’m sure it helps that I know it’s where we are supposed to go to _die._   Down in tunnels, sealed away from air and clouds and wind, the very things I am most bonded to, Alistair, the very first spirits I called.  I get claustrophobic thinking about it.”  Which she knew on some level was not sensible, given how much of her life she’d spent enclosed in a tower much smaller than a whole dwarven city, but there it was all the same.  Even the Tower had been under the sky.  There’d been no sense that the sky was _gone._

He pulled her close, wrapping his cloak around them both, using his warmth to soothe her.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I wish there were something I could say that made it better.”

“This errand makes it better, for now.  It reminds me that we are not down there for good, this time.  And this message I’m taking to Irving – it represents one dwarf, one _person_ who might actually be able to follow her own desires for herself, and not just what she was born to.  That means something to me.”  She looked up into his eyes and did not add, _It proves that what I want for you will be possible._

He did not seem to read her thought:  he took the eye contact instead as an invitation to nuzzle against the side of her throat whispering lovely things, and she was quite content with that.

It was stranger each time to come back to the Tower, and watch the sense of it as being home gradually falling away.  This time, of course, it still bore scars from the fight against Uldred and his abominations, and a number of those she had known were gone, whether as traitors or casualties.  As she’d hoped, though, Irving was intrigued by the idea of having a dwarf come to study magical theory, and share her own knowledge about lyrium.  Intellectual curiosity had always been their common ground, and it did not take long for her to convince him that the experiment was worthwhile.

She decided against asking how Cullen was or what had become of Jowan.  It was hard to imagine the answers making her happy, and perhaps it was for the best if she finally cut herself clean of that part of her past, and let it be free of her as well.

On the road back toward the mountains, she began to wonder aloud about the Proving, and Zevran asked, “So you have not changed your mind about supporting Harrowmont?”

“He seems to be the better man.”

“He also seems to be the _weaker_ man.  I am not sure he will be of enough use to us.”

“This is about a whole country’s welfare, Zev.  I am not going to leave it up to what I think we can use in the moment.”

Zevran frowned.  “The world will not always conform to your ideals, my Warden.  I worry for what will become of you the day you learn that.”

“Did I not learn it from the Dalish, then?”

“Apparently not.”

She smirked at him.  “It is sweet of you to care.”

“No, no.  I am being practical.”

“Of course.”  She let it go at that, knowing that the hardest part left for him was admitting that he had begun to develop real friendships with the rest of them, real concern and trust.  He was still capable of that, happily, but he’d been trained to see such feelings as liabilities, and that would still take time to fade.

As happy as she was to bring good news back to Dagna, it meant going back into the bowels of the earth, this time to stay until the treaty was seen and honored, she promised herself.  She went back among the dwarves, and listened to them joke about falling up into the sky, and she tried not to retort that the sky could at least be trusted not to come _down_ and crush her.

            The next day, the Proving was held.  A “Glory Proving,” as they repeatedly called it; she could not make out what that meant, beyond the idea that honor somehow accrued from it to someone who was not among the fighters, which was nonsensical to her.  But at least they were fights to submission and not to death, so there would be no guilt over taking life unnecessarily.  The dwarves were clearly unused to magic as a factor in combat, and she won her solo rounds easily.

            Then there was a resting period, during which she was informed that in the remaining rounds she would be entitled to a second.  They did not have to be among the scheduled fighters, she was told, which spared her the bother of being angry over lack of notice.  After a brief actual rest in the little private room she was allowed for the purpose, she sought Alistair out in the betting hall and asked him to fight beside her.  He grinned and blushed as if she had asked him to a dance.  “Of course,” he said.  “Always.”

            It made for a good opportunity to observe how skilled a fighter he had become.  He was all power and efficient grace, and given his size advantage he could upend a dwarf almost without effort.  Two on two, they made short work of their opponents:  two on four at least took long enough to make a better show for the audience.  Whatever “glory” there was in a Proving, it would go to Harrowmont.

            When she and Alistair emerged into the betting hall, many dwarves were speaking in animated tones, and money was clearly changing hands.  It appeared that Zevran was on the winning side of some of the bets, and he was collecting with a smug grin on his face.  She laughed, and followed a few steps behind Alistair toward her party – but that was when the real shouting started.  _A fair fight_ came up a lot, both affirmed and denied; and _outsiders in a Proving_ , and then, perhaps inevitably, references to Harrowmont and to Bhelen.

            And then it was chaos.  Weapons were drawn – first by some coherent group near the door to the rooms Bhelen’s champions had been using, and she thought she heard his name go up among them – and then Harrowmont’s other fighters swarmed toward them, and some of the spectators entered the clash as well.  Alistair was trying to push the sides apart with his shield alone, calling for order; but shortly he was forced to give up and draw his weapon, as both Zevran and Leliana had already done. 

            Philoméne began to gather her power for a spell to control the crowd – but she felt it fizzle in her hands.  She scowled in confusion:  there had been no interference, as the fight had not yet reached her, so why –

            Pain in the back of her skull, and blackness, and falling.

 

            Throbbing head.  And sore shoulders:  why?  Because her arms were above her head, and bearing weight.  She tried to pull them down and failed.  She was against a wall.  Not fully suspended, but not fully standing on her feet.  Awkward and painful.  She groaned as she tried to open her eyes:  light was unpleasant to her head.

            “You are waking up, then,” said a man’s voice, off to one side.  “Patience.  I am nearly ready.”

            Couldn’t focus.  “Where am I?”  Her voice was small and creaky.

            “Dust Town.  No one is going to pay attention to shouting.”

            The voice was familiar.  Wasn’t it?  Not someone who wanted her dead, at least not yet.  Talking made her head hurt more.  “Won’t help Bhelen.  Won’t help Loghain.  What do you want?”

            “Sanctity.  The power to divorce demons from the flesh they steal.”  He paused, and there were metallic sounds.  “Do you know what happens when mages are made Tranquil, Philoméne?”

            Someone who knew her.  She struggled against the pain and blurriness, only to realize that she would also have to turn her head, because she had both tunnel vision and her own arm blocking her view.

            “I have seen it,” the man went on.  “One could not imagine putting an ordinary person through the ordeal.  But then, it would not be necessary, would it?  I’ve wondered if it would be enough to cure an abomination.  I would prefer not to have to kill you, you see.  My own weakness.”

            Cullen.  It was Cullen’s voice.  “No.”

            “No indeed.”  There was pain in his voice.  “I have not the heart to make you Tranquil, either.  You would not – _she_ would not be the woman I knew, even if I succeeded.  We will try something else.”

            “Cullen.  I’m not an abomination.”  She begged her head to clear and her hands to stop being numb.  She couldn’t cast big enough to overpower a Templar if she couldn’t even –

            He stepped into her line of sight, in his hand some nasty steel implement for which she had no name, that glowed faintly.  His face was pale and drawn, and dark around the eyes, haunted.  “No?” he asked, touching her cheek.  “Everything you have done, everything you have survived – the stories are everywhere.  How else do you explain it?  You are no mere elf.”

            She wanted to cry for him.  She could not afford the luxury.  “Gregoir.  Take me to Gregoir.”

            “He’s gone too soft.  He is not even testing the survivors in the Tower.  I….”  His face saddened, and he held her face by the chin.  “I do not know if you can hear me, Philoméne.  I do not know how much of the girl is left within you, but I promise that I will find her.”  Sternness in his eyes, and a barbed edge drawn across her ribs, not yet enough to tear.  “It may hurt a great deal.”

            Testing?  _Testing_ was torture, a last resort attempt to drive a demon out with pain.  It had been deemed ineffective and cruel, and forbidden many years ago, she thought.  She curled and uncurled her fingers weakly, frustrated.  She could feel his focus, his negation sitting on her like a heavy weight:  it was why she was regaining control so slowly. 

            Surely they would be looking for her.  She had to buy more time.

            “I am myself, Cullen.  Ask me anything.”

            “Oh, of course,” he said with a mirthless chuckle.  “Tempt me with deceptions.  Lay her out before me as a snare.”  Suddenly his mouth was pressed over hers, and then he let out a needy moan and leaned his whole body into her, smashing her into the wall.  His empty hand passed up and down her torso in a series of quick, desperate grabs matching the ferocity of the kiss.  Then just as abruptly, he took her by the neck and threw her back against the wall, breaking from her and glowering as if it was something she had done.  Pain screamed through the back of her head again; she did not pass out, but Cullen was back to a blur surrounded by darkness.

            Think.  Think of _something._

            He left her sight for a moment, and came back with some different tool in hand.  Curved sides.  He lifted it for her to see – no: he was forcing her mouth open, pushing it in.

            “This one is called the pear,” he told her quietly as he worked.  Her tongue was pushed back in her mouth, gagging her, and her jaw already hurt.  “We will have no more talking, demon.  Is this uncomfortable?  Every time you try to speak to me, I will open it a little further.  Opened to its limits, it will rip your cheeks and break your jaw.”  He paused for a perversely tender kiss to her cheek, then went again toward the place where he must have his implements laid out.

            There was the numbing taste of lyrium along with the metal.  All his tools must be enchanted, then – tools stored away from some darker chapter in Templar history.  They were intended to be painful to more than just the body, to do hurt to the demon hiding within it.  Or, if there was no demon present, to the _soul._   One of the reasons the practice had been banned.

            Not that knowing the history did her any good.

            By the clatter, he was bringing several objects at once.  Skewers.  One pierced her a few inches to the right of her navel.  She struggled not to cry out, for fear he would take it as “talking.”  The second was off to the left, and perhaps deeper, and the yelp was out before she could stop it.

            “Demon,” he said blandly, “I fix you at the seat of will.  I bind you until you relinquish this girl, the Maker’s servant.”

            Her stomach was full of burning.  The next pair went into her hands, and clear through.  A mercy, after all, that they had fallen asleep.  Duller pain, for now, only worth a whimper and a roll forward of the head.

            “Demon, I fix you at the seat of action.  I bind you until you relinquish this girl, the Maker’s servant.”  He lifted her head by the chin.  “I have not skewered your tongue, but all the same, I fix you at the seat of speech.”  He gave the piece of metal hanging out of her mouth a twist, and she felt the petals of the device expand, stretching her more unpleasantly.

            There was no more trying to plan or to build up spells.  Her head was swimming.  _Stop.  I’m not.  Stop._

            Metal brushed against her inner thigh.  She closed her eyes against it.  Nothing else to be done.  It pierced and burned, worse than ever, and she shook.  “Demon, I fix you at the seat of desire.”

            As she braced herself for the same on the other side, she heard the door crash open.  “Here!” a voice cried – Alistair’s, perhaps.  She so wanted it to be Alistair’s.

            Cullen turned to face the intruder.  “Stay back, brother,” he said.  “I am the only chance she has.”

            A roar and a crash, and they were out of her line of sight.  Her head was too dark to see as far as the door, either.  There was only the noise of fighting, and it seemed to grow, and there was some kind of blasting noise as well as clashes of metal – and the voice again.  She was almost convinced it was Alistair.  “I can take him!  Get her down from there!”

            The next thing to enter her vision was Zevran’s face, and she almost wept in relief.  He studied her with a concerned scowl, and muttered something in Antivan.  “Curse me for a fool.  I watched for Crows and missed the Templar.  Morrigan,” he said over his shoulder.  “Should I take them out now, or wait?”

            “They are cursed,” she said.  “Take them out now.  I would rather deal with the extra blood.”

            The elf nodded and turned back toward Philoméne.  “My apologies, Warden.  This will not be pleasant.”  One by one he yanked the skewers free of her, each one a fresh rush of pain.  All the while, clanking and grunts of rage and effort.

            While Zevran was trying to remove the pear, slowly and with much more thought, she heard Morrigan’s voice again.  “If you will pardon me for a moment, Alistair, I do need to retrieve the key.  Once I have it, you may continue killing the dead man all you like.” A growl and a sigh. 

She was aware of her mouth hanging open, her tongue lolling forward in sudden freedom, and struggled to regain control of them until Zevran gently pushed her jaw shut for her.  “Handled like a Crow, my Warden,” he whispered, and if her mouth had been less sore she would have smiled for him.  By then Morrigan was there with the key, unlocking the shackles around her wrists.  “Carefully,” Zevran said.  “Not too fast.  Mind her shoulders.”

Morrigan stepped aside; it was Zevran’s and Alistair’s hands that guided her to the floor.  Alistair that she was leaned back against, she assumed, since Zevran and Morrigan she could see before her.  She thought she might feel herself bleeding, but when she tried to lift her hands to examine them her arms refused to obey her.  Of course, from the hanging – no, her legs did not respond either. 

Yellow eyes.  Had Morrigan been talking to her?  Everything had hazed over again, sound as well as light.  “Nature of the wound,” Morrigan was saying, something about – yes, about the skewers.  Body and soul, not attached correctly.  Old technique of the Templars.  Oh, Maker, poor Cullen, he’d lost his mind.  Where was he?  Was he gone?

“Philoméne,” said Morrigan’s voice, stern now.  “Pay attention.  Take what I am giving you, and follow me.”  Some pair of hands that might be her own felt other hands taking hold of them.  Warm, growing warmer.  Fluid and energy running between them.  Other voices spoke, but they were far away, lost in echo somewhere.  Only Morrigan’s was clear for her.  “Zevran,” she heard the witch snarl, “Tell Alistair that he is making this more difficult, and that if he so much as utters the words _blood magic_ he will be a toad as soon as I am finished here.”

It _was_ blood magic, though not of the normal sort.  Nothing was being summoned or banished, no life was being lost.  Just – a tether made of raw, wild _aliveness_ , reaching into her by the most direct possible route and lashing her back together. 

The world became coherent again around her, and she could feel her limbs becoming her own.  “She’s a Gray Warden,” Alistair said, behind and above her.  “Do you realize what you’ve – ”

“She hasn’t,” she heard herself say.  “She can lock it out.  She’s not in danger.”

“’Tis kind of you to worry, all the same,” Morrigan sneered.  “Misguided, but that is typical of you.”

“Tsk, be fair, Morrigan,” said Zevran, off to the side.  “The boy has been in a panic for hours.  Give him a moment to recover before you go back to pummeling him with your charms.”

“Hmph.”  Her yellow eyes studied Philoméne’s again, and she smiled a little, pleased with what she saw.  “Here you are, then.  Now, kindly tell me again why it is that we do not kill all Templars on principle.”

“Alistair,” Philoméne sighed, and looked up, seeking him out.  Her head was in his lap, between his hands; he stared down at her, and the clearer her sight became, the clearer were the lines of salt down his face.

His fingers dug into her hair.  “Maker’s breath, Philoméne,” he choked.  “Never do this to me again.”

She had another try at smiling, and the corners of her mouth seemed to come up at least a little.  “Well.  I was not trying to do it this time, you know.”

“She is well enough to take back to Wynne,” Morrigan announced.  “Let us be on our way.  This district is so filthy it makes me itch.”

They carefully pulled her up to sit – Zevran, she thought, insinuating himself between her and a clear view of the room.  “Is it that bad?” she asked.

Zevran smirked at her.  “Let us just say that you are most likely not well enough to see the mess we are leaving.”

She felt emotionally exhausted.  “Poor Cullen.”

“Poor _Cullen,_ ” Alistair snarled, and shifted them so that he could clutch her to him as tightly as she could bear.  _“Never_ again, do you hear.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Cullen fans! Also, this was written before the game sequels, so I didn't know how far afield from canon this one decision was going to carry us.


	18. Aftercare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before Philomene and Alistair are ready to resume their quests to save Ferelden from the Blight and Loghain, they need some help with recovery.

            Every passing moment seemed to bring Alistair closer to full panic.  They must have questioned a dozen dwarves before they even found one who could say he had seen her fall; another dozen before the first mention of another “outsider” being nearby.  Big fellow, a lot like Alistair except with a beard, even the same armor –

            Cullen.  There was no scenario Alistair could imagine in which Cullen’s presence could be a good thing.  And that was despite imagining an unpleasant number of variations.  He lost the ability to interrogate witnesses sanely, and that task fell to _Morrigan_ , of all people, while Zevran scoured the ground for physical traces and mumbled foreign but very bitter sounding words to himself.

            She’d only been a few steps behind him.  The betting room of the Proving Hall was not supposed to be a dangerous place, not next to werewolf lairs and cultist strongholds.  He’d all but decided she was invincible; it had just been play between them, all that talk of protection and pet Templars –

            And all the time it was a Templar she needed to be protected _from._

            In Dust Town no one would admit to seeing anything at all; they would probably have denied seeing their own feet if asked.  But the unpaved ground was easier for Zevran to read, and he was moving quickly now.  The trail he seemed to be following led into an abandoned shack, no different to Alistair’s eyes than any other in its row.  Here it went cold again for a moment, and Alistair brought his clenched hands up to his face in an effort to keep himself from screaming.

            “I have found it,” the elf said; and then he pulled down Alistair’s arms and fixed a penetrating gaze on him.  “Breathe, Alistair.  We will need you breathing.”

            He had opened some hidden doorway leading down into the stone.  How would Cullen even have known – he must have apprenticed with the mage-hunters before going to the Tower.  They knew all sorts of little holes like this all over the world, or so it was said.  Places apostates might hide… or places where they could take apostates they’d captured and be left undisturbed.

            The scenes unfolding in his head were only getting worse.  He charged into the tunnel and left Zevran and Morrigan to hurry along behind him.  Unfortunately, like so many tunnels, it had to _divide_.  He went straight, under the half-formed rationale that deeper depravity would feel compelled to hide itself deeper in the earth.  He willed the others to fan out into other routes, to find her faster, without stopping to tell them so.

            His guess had been correct, though:  he soon knew it by sound.  Vague at first, a man intoning what must be some form of memorized cant, and a woman moaning.  And then he knew the voices, and he knew the words.  He slammed through the door without bothering to try the handle; the instant he saw that this was the room they were in, he called out for the others.

            For one awful moment his mind absorbed the full detail of the room:  the table full of implements of torture; the blood; the crazed Templar with long metal skewers in both hands; Philoméne – Maker – and then his perception shut down, tunneling in on the core facts that his lover was hurt and that it was Cullen’s fault, and that the madman was turning toward him with a look that expected a fellow Templar’s cooperation, and saying that _this was for her good._

            He broke.

            He was vaguely aware of the moment when he made contact, sweeping Cullen aside with a roar.  Of striking out repeatedly, of seeing the light of a spell, of shouting that Cullen was his and the others must see to _her_ ….

            But he did not start to get his wits back until Morrigan told him that she needed the key off of the body.  That made him slow down enough to think, which was also enough to see what he was doing.  He had apparently never gotten as far as drawing his weapon, but all the same he was covered in as much blood as – as what he could only assume was Cullen.  He _had_ gotten a skewer away from him and driven it through his neck, as well as broken a number of the dead man’s bones, including most of those in his face.

            For that matter, there was a skewer sticking out of his own shoulder.  He plucked it out casually, then moved off of the body to let Morrigan search it.  “How… how is she?”

            “I do not know yet, except that she lives.”  A pause.  “We will need your help to take her down.”

            “Get those things out of her first,” he rasped.  “I can’t see that.”

            “ _You_ cannot – ” but she seemed to think better of insulting him.  “Zevran is doing it.  We should be ready for you in only a moment.”  He nodded, and she rose to move into place.

            Morrigan worked some kind of wild magic on Philoméne to stanch the spiritual wounds, which she asserted were the chief danger.  That made it safe to carry her back to the tavern:  Wynne took over the healing from there while Morrigan made arrangements for Philoméne to have her own room rather than sharing with the other women as she had been doing.  When the new room was ready, Alistair carried Philoméne to it, and he had already decided that it would be _their_ room.  He was never, ever going to leave her side again.  If she did not want him in the bed, he would sleep on the floor.

            That turned out not to be an issue:  as soon as he laid her down, she tugged weakly at him until he laid down next to her, then snuggled into the crook of his arm and went to sleep there.  He was exhausted and relieved and smitten, and it ought to have been enough for him to fall asleep as well, he thought.  Instead, he lay there and thought incessantly about what had happened, and what _might_ have happened had he arrived any later, and what in the world he was going to do now that he was terrified about losing her and had to keep taking her into danger _all the time._

            Thus he was still awake when Leliana appeared, carrying a towel.  “Oh, good,” she smiled.  “She is already sleeping well.  It’s a very good sign.”

            “That’s one of us, at least,” he grumbled, stretching his limbs only to realize how much they were beginning to ache.  “Is it morning?”

            “As far as one can tell down here.  Everyone is behaving as if it is.  I don’t know how they decide.”  She brushed Philoméne’s tousled hair with her fingers, coaxing her awake.  “Philoméne?  You should come with me and have a proper bath before breakfast.”

            Philoméne stirred, her dark eyes opening.  “Should I?  I know Wynne put me back together, but I still don’t feel right.”

            “No, they both said it would be slow.  All the tools were cursed.”  Leliana’s face fell for just an instant into sorrowful pity, but then she wrenched it back toward good cheer.  “Still you should be able to start moving.  It would be a good time to try.  I know a bath would make you feel better.”

            “Yes, it probably would.”  She took the bard’s extended hand, and with Leliana pulling and Alistair lifting, sat upright.  Standing went more roughly; it involved several stifled pain noises that echoed viciously in his chest. 

            “That’s enough,” he scowled.  “If she must have a bath now, I will take her.”

            But Philoméne smiled weakly over her shoulder at him.  “You mustn’t get into the habit of carrying me everywhere.  We will look very silly going into battle.”

            “Philoméne – ”

            “Bathtime is for girls, Alistair,” Leliana insisted.  “Girls with bows and arrows, and traps, and big nasty spells.  We will be fine.”  Her lips quirked up into a slight smile.  “And if _you_ come anywhere near us, I will make you _pretty._ ”

            Zevran chuckled from the door.  “Always these empty promises of shows I never get to see.”  He was holding a tray full of food; Leliana allowed him to come inside and set it down on the side table before proceeding slowly toward the door with Philoméne.

            “The same goes for you,” Leliana added, looking at Zevran even more playfully.

            He shrugged.  “I am already quite pretty.  Do your worst.  As for you, Alistair, you are eating first.  I intend to stay and make sure that you do.”  With that, he sat down casually at the foot of the bed, watching Alistair.

            By now Leliana and Philoméne were gone, and Alistair was already uncomfortable.  “Eat,” Zevran insisted, waving toward the tray.  “Look, I brought you eggs.  Where the dwarves obtain their eggs I shudder to think, but they are fairly edible.  And a bit of dried fruit from the rations.  Oh, and what the dwarves assure us is _cheese_ , but they are applying the word rather liberally.”

            At the mention of cheese Alistair spared the tray a sideways glance, but he was not quite enticed enough to move.  “So what is all this, Zevran?”

            “Leliana and I have taken charge of rehabilitation.  We have… insight into the process that the others do not.”

            “Of course you do.  Who did you torture?”  But as the words left his mouth, he realized what else Zevran might have meant, and with a look into the elf’s unusually pensive eyes the suspicion was confirmed.  “Ah, Maker, Zev, I’m sorry.”

            Zevran shrugged again and glanced away.  “I am hardly the first Crow accused of torture, and many of us are guilty.  It is used as a training device, in fact.”  A meaningful pause.

            “I see,” Alistair said quietly.  “And Leliana?”

            “Fell in on the wrong side of a political squabble, I believe.  The point is that we felt we could be particularly useful to you and our Warden for this.”

            “To _me?_   Nothing happened to _me._   There is no point in being ‘particularly useful’ to _me._ ”  He could hear his own voice rising in a way that any fool, let alone Zevran, could read.

            “Tsk tsk.  You are not a good liar, Alistair.”

            Alistair leaned forward into his hands glumly.  “But it’s true.  I’m not the one who was hurt.  I don’t need anything.  I… I shouldn’t.”

            “Of course not.  You have just seen one of the worst things it is possible to see.  Now,” Zevran added, cutting short the protest before Alistair could get it out, “do not speak to me of war and Wardens.  War is not torture, and strangers are not lovers.  You now know these things as well as I do.  Why do you expect them to _feel_ the same?”

            “I….”  He wasn’t going to cry again, not in front of Zevran.  He ran his fingers through his hair instead.  “Fine, you’re right.  It feels worse.  I was supposed to protect her, and I failed, and now I can’t stop _seeing_ it.  And he was a Templar, and _I’m –_ you want to help me?”  He was talking loudly again.  He couldn’t help it.  “Get rid of my damned armor and get me something else.  I never want to see that suit again.”

            Zevran nodded calmly.  “I will.  Later.  It is not your fault, you know.”

            “Good.  Not my fault.  What a relief.  Only it still happened, didn’t it?  And I know that I’m going to have to put it aside somehow and go back to fighting other crazy people with her, oh, and also darkspawn, and I can’t.  I _can’t._ ”

            The elf sighed and moved the tray of food onto the bed between them.  “You do not have to put it aside _today_ , Alistair.  Today, you only have to remember how to eat and sleep.”

            Maybe.  Maybe if he managed to do at least one or the other, his hands wouldn’t keep shaking.  Half-heartedly he glanced over the selection of foods and picked up a pale yellow shaving to pop into his mouth.  It was chewy and like – perhaps a mushroom?  Not really, no.  Not like anything that came to mind.  “And they told you that this was cheese?”

            “I am afraid so.  I know you would prefer the genuine article, but it is not available here.”  He snickered.  “I can tell you now, you will not be more impressed by what they choose to call _wine._ ”

            Alistair nodded.  “I had dwarven ale once.  I thought it was a joke.”

            “The eggs are somewhat better.  One imagines they actually came from some sort of animal.”

            “Strangely insistent on the eggs,” Alistair mumbled, taking a bite of one anyway.  “Something in them I should know about?”

            “Not through any fault of mine.  I did bring pepper,” he added, pointing at it.

            And so it went for a while:  Alistair slowly picking at the food while Zevran engaged him in completely trivial bits of conversation.  Judgments on various kinds of food and drink; the shortness of the beds, and how a man like Alistair, let alone Sten, managed to sleep on them; the dwarven fixation on beards.  He was aware, in the back of his mind, of being deliberately channeled, but it was too much of a relief to complain about it.

            Philoméne came back still damp, wrapped in a towel, and moving a bit less creakily, though not quite normally.  Alistair’s breath hitched a little.

            “My Warden!” Zevran smiled, the deliberate nature of his cheer quite obvious.  “I have never seen you with all of your hair down.  It is quite fetching.”

            She cast her eyes down, her smile bashful.  “Mostly it’s wet.”  She tilted up her pillow and sat next to Alistair, the tray between her and Zevran – who, surprisingly, forced his eyes toward Alistair during the moment when her towel threatened to drop.

            That made her laugh.  “Don’t hurt yourself, Zev.”

            He smirked back at her.  “Not at all, my Warden.  You see, the way I have cured myself of the impulse to creep into your bed is to tell myself that we are related on my mother’s side.  To indulge any lust for you now would be unwholesome.”

            “Mmm.”  She looked at what was left of the food with a wistful air.  “Are you done with that?”

            “I think it was for both of us,” Alistair said sheepishly.

            She leaned back into her pillow and sighed.  “I’d like to eat, but somehow I’m still exhausted.”

            “Of course you are,” Zevran commented.  “Rest, my Warden.  We are in no hurry to be anywhere.  If you would like more breakfast than this, I can fetch it for you.”

            “Actually,” Leliana interjected from the doorway, “I imagine that is enough for now.  While we’re here we can have lunches.  And perhaps later we can have Wynne make some tea.  But for now, let us go so they can relax.”

            Zevran glanced back and forth between the other three, then nodded.  “Yes, I suppose so.  Alistair, if either of you require anything before then, we will not be far away.”  One side of his mouth quirked upward as he added, “If the door is closed, knock loudly before you come in, hmm?”

            Leliana rolled her eyes as Zevran rose and came toward her and the door.  “Pft.  You want to make everything sound so indecent.”  All the same she was smiling when he reached her, and let him place his hand against the small of her back as they closed the door behind them.

            Alistair picked up a bit of food from the tray and held it close to Philoméne’s mouth.  “You have to try this,” he said.  “Dwarven cheese.”

            Her lips closed around the morsel:  as she chewed, her face crinkled up a little, clearly perplexed.  “This is _not_ cheese,” she mumbled.

            He laughed.  “No, I don’t think so either.”

            “Then what is it?”

            “No one seems to know.  Here, I do know that this used to be a plum.”  He offered a bit of dried fruit.  That she took as well, kissing his fingertips as she did.  So they proceeded for a bit longer, and gradually he relaxed, nestling his head against her shoulder and occasionally giving it a soft kiss.

            For now, all was well.  And he was exhausted.

            They fell asleep propped against their pillows, leaning into each other.

 


	19. Den of Thieves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you know what cheers some people up? Quick furtive sex in a room full of dead dwarves. Takes all kinds. (sex chapter)

            They spent several more days at Tapster’s recuperating.  On the first afternoon, Wynne not only fulfilled Leliana’s promise of tea, but also convinced the owners to give her access to the oven to make cookies.  She admitted, when bringing them, that the ingredients were quite expensive in Orzammar, since almost all of them had to come from the surface, but Philoméne’s face lit up with such innocent delight that it was hard to worry about the money.

            Gradually, Alistair’s struggle with what had happened between Philoméne and Cullen faded into the background, and he was able to focus more on the opportunity to rest with his darling in his arms.  The same thing seemed to happen for Philoméne, which made him that much happier.  Of course, by the time contentment had really become the dominant feeling, everyone realized that they were well enough to go back to work.

            Just before they finally made their official emergence, he pulled her in with one arm and kissed her forehead.  “We will have this again,” he promised her.  “Someday, after we’ve stopped the Blight.  Probably minus the volunteer elven servant and the steady supply of cookies.”  He cut himself short from making a joke of it.  “But we’ll have peace.  We’ll have a chance to be happy.  I’ll make it happen.”

            Being such a kind creature, she didn’t point out how little power he had to make that kind of promise.  She just smiled as if she not only agreed but had already factored it into her plans, and headed down to meet the others.

            Harrowmont’s man had already come to show them the way to the lord’s estate, so that they could speak with him personally.  The dwarf also asked if Alistair liked the “gift” that had been sent for him, a set of heavy armor that looked well-made and expensive.

            Before Alistair could protest such an extravagant present, Zevran yanked him aside and whispered to him.  “Do not turn this down, Alistair.  You need the armor.  I… I confess, I had to use the money from your other suit for Wynne’s supplies.  The cookies.”

            “What?  If you’d told us flour and sugar were _that_ expensive, we wouldn’t have eaten so many.”

            “You were not the issue.  It turns out that Sten has quite a weakness for such things.  It was all poor Wynne could do to keep up with him.”

            Alistair raised his eyebrows.  Zevran nodded.  Alistair turned back toward the dwarf smiling.  “This is a wonderful present, and I will put it to good use.  Thank you.”

            Everybody happy, they went into the Diamond Quarter and Harrowmont’s estate.  The lord was an older gentleman with a very polite bearing, almost soft.  He repeated his gratitude personally, then “offered” a second task in exchange for his support in the dwarven council.

            Zevran was nonplussed, and made a point of saying so once they had left the estate.  “I still think he is too weak a leader for us to support.  Now he wants us to do something he ought to have done, so that he can take credit for it without having his own people do the work.”

            “Does that really bother you?” Alistair asked.  “I mean, you’re a Crow, right?  You used to do dirty work for nobles in secret all the time.”

            Zevran pondered this for a moment, then shrugged.  “True enough, I suppose.  Perhaps I like to think that I am better than that now.”

            “You always were,” Philoméne grinned, before Alistair could ruin the moment by snickering.  “You just didn’t have a choice before.  Unfortunately, we don’t have much of a choice now, either.  We need the dwarves.”

            “We could still approach Bhelen.”

            “He’ll just want to send us on some other errand – possibly this same one, if Jarvia is as big a problem as Harrowmont said.  And I trust him less.”

            Zevran shrugged.  “It is your decision, my Warden.”

            Allegedly, it was all but impossible to find a way into the carta’s secret warren:  but of course a random beggar Philoméne had given coin to the first time they’d come wandering through Dust Town turned out to be a former cohort of Jarvia’s, and she told them what they had to do.

            What she didn’t tell them was the password they would need to get past the first guards.  When Alistair’s guess of “Pretty please?  Or we’ll tell Mom you wouldn’t let us in the clubhouse?” didn’t work, it came to blows, as he had figured was the plan anyway.

            When the room was clear, Philoméne kissed him on the cheek.  “I like it when you’re silly,” she said.

            Even though by now she had kissed him many times, not just on the cheek but better places, he felt himself blush a little as he smiled at her.  “I like that you actually like it.”

            Zevran turned and regarded them both with a grin and a falsely loud sigh.  “Do you know what I like?  I like to stay focused when I am in the middle of killing off an entire criminal organization.  Just in case any of them are actually paying attention.  Shall we move on?”

            Leliana shook her head at him.  “You’re just jealous, Zev.”

            “Perhaps,” he smirked.  “Perhaps I would feel differently if I were the one getting kisses between battles – from a stunning redhead, for example.  On the other hand, if we all stop for romantic interludes every time we defeat a mere handful of guards, we are never going to get out of here.”

            The tunnels were extensive enough to be a whole neighborhood of their own, full of thugs and what they had to assume were illegal goods.  “I suppose this is why they haven’t handled it themselves,” Alistair said at another pause.  “It would take an army.”

            “Can you really be surprised?” Zevran asked.  “There is an entire class of people here who are not slaves but cannot be hired for any legal work.  What else are they going to do?”

            Leliana moved close to him, concerned.  “Does it bother you that we have to kill them?”

            He shrugged.  “No, not really.  This is the nature of the business.  The ones who are down here will be the muscle, and this is how the muscle dies, sooner or later.  If sooner is what works best for us, so be it.”

            Neither of them objected to the amount of money and goods they found rummaging through crates and locked chests – Leliana had a talent for getting into those, for all her talk of being an innocent lay sister.  Alistair had suspicions about her career before the Chantry, but she never discussed it openly with him.

            The tunnels seemed to just keep going and branching, like a rabbit warren only with doors.  And crates.  And instead of rabbits, dwarves and the occasional qunari mercenary.  Philoméne was shocked at the first of these:  she confessed after he was down that she’d never really thought about there being a whole race of beings like Sten somewhere in the world.  She wondered aloud how they would manage living in a country where everything was designed for folk half their size.

            Which meant that Alistair started wondering about it, since he’d been having enough trouble as a tallish human.  That meant that he started trying to analyze Sten’s demeanor during their time in Orzammar, which of course was completely useless.

            But _that_ meant that he was inappropriately distracted when they reached Jarvia, and thus not the first to respond when the carta leader announced that she had special plans for “the pretty one.”  Instead, Zevran grinned and flashed his daggers.  “I assume you are referring to me,” he purred.  “I have plans for you as well.”

            The assassin and Philoméne made straight for Jarvia, leaving Alistair to plow down the line of guards between them while Leliana shot at those further back.  The fight was going smoothly until Jarvia fell back into an alcove: Leliana shouted “Trap!” just as Philoméne triggered it and was blown back by the explosion.

            He couldn’t stop fighting to run to her.  Getting protective in the middle of battle would be worse for both of them than trusting her until he was really needed.  He wasn’t:  she got up whole and crackling, and then the entire back half of the warehouse-sized room was full of dancing bolts.  He grinned and returned his focus to his own opponents.

            Her spell didn’t fade until several moments after Jarvia was dead, and he watched her standing haloed in its dancing light, and felt a fierce passion sweep over him.  He remembered that she was strong and unwavering as well as small and beautiful, and he wanted her in a way that was totally inappropriate to the setting.

            …Then again, no.  He’d spent a lot of his life flying in the face of what was appropriate for no good reason.  Why let propriety stand in the way of something as important as tasting the last trace of magic on his lover’s skin?  He came up behind her and slipped a hand around her waist, dropping his head to kiss the tip of her ear.

            “Tsk, Alistair,” she whispered, but she nestled back tighter against him rather than moving away.  “You’re spending too much time with Zev.”

            “He didn’t teach me this one,” he breathed into her ear, and then raised his head to say more loudly, “Zev?  Why don’t you and Leliana go on and make sure the rest of the way is clear?  We, ah… we need a moment.”

            Zevran beamed with humor.  “Of course.  You both look exhausted.  In fact, perhaps I should stay in case one of you faints, and I need to step in and take over?”

            Leliana, more politely, was already heading for the door:  but on the way she stopped to nibble at the side of Zevran’s neck for just long enough to make his eyes fall shut.  “You see?  Jealous.”

            “…Fine.  I’m coming.”  He followed her out, his end of their ongoing conversation fading gradually away into echoes against the stone.  “I am telling you, it could have worked…. Do you know what an amazing foursome we would make?... I’m serious!”

            When the rogues were too far away for their words to be distinct, Philoméne began to speak.  “So what did you w-”  But he was already turning her toward him, and his kiss interrupted her question.  He reached his tongue toward hers to keep her mouth from closing and pressed her close to him – not close enough, through all his armor, but at least it shifted a bit to let him know he had done it.  Just enough to leave him needing more, actually.  He lifted her up and sat her on one of the fancy drum-shaped crates, where she was more on a level with him.

            “What did I want?” he sighed, his mouth wandering over her throat and her jaw.  “Oh, nothing in particular.”  Behind her back he pulled off his gauntlets and tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back to expose more of her neck to him.  Her hair seemed softer, her skin smoother, for being the first things his hands touched outside the armor, and he could feel his blood coursing.  Her flesh warmed beneath his lips, and she sighed:  there was little else she could do to reciprocate.

            “Maker,” he growled at last, “this sodding armor.  Help me.”  There followed what seemed like two eternities of both of them untying laces and peeling him out of layers of metal and padding.  As soon as he was free he fairly pounced on her, and she fell back on her elbows under the weight of his assault as he bit at her lips, frantic with want.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, then gasped and squeezed him tighter when he pulled her hips to the edge of the crate.

            He took the neckpiece of her Tevinter robe from her, and with it went the feathery shoulders.  Immediately he was grazing across the newly exposed skin with his teeth, half-intoxicated, and now she began kissing her own gentler trail down his shoulder.  The corset still denied him the amount of softness that he needed, and he tugged impatiently at the laces.  “Demons,” he whispered.  “Demons invented clothing.”  She laughed and stroked the back of his head.

            Ah, there it came.  Now it was only a thin layer of fabric between her breasts and his hands, and he kneaded them as peacefully as the fevered buzz in his head would allow.  Her whimpers were maddening. 

            “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured into the hollow of her throat.  “Tell me I will always be with you.”

            She held him to her by the shoulders.  “Say it yourself.”

            He shook his head, moving one hand between her legs to get the skirt of her robe out of his way.  “When I say it, I’m an idiot making wishes.  When you say it, I believe you.”

            Her dark eyes found his, and she smiled.  “All right, then.  You will always be with me.  Should I make it an order?”

            He grinned at that:  then he tugged the crotch of her smallclothes aside and thrust into her, and she squealed at how sudden it was and melted into him.  He closed his eyes as he fell into rhythm, surprised as always at how it could possibly feel better than he’d remembered.

            _Yes, make it an order.  Make it a law in the Book of Light.  Make it impossible for me to fail you, because I would rather die._

            She was gentle even in the throes of passion, her hands sliding constantly over his back and his arms without grasping.  As much as he loved that sweetness, the part of him that could not have enough of her wondered what it would take to have her digging her nails into his skin and wailing.  He locked his lips onto hers and pulled her hips into his thrusts, forward until she was poised on the very edge of the crate, reliant on him to hold her steady.  Her legs wrapped around his, and now she clung to him for support, moaning softly into his ear.

            “Alistair,” she whispered.  “Alistair, you mean it, don’t you?”

            “Do I mean – ”  He laughed breathlessly and raised one hand into her hair.  “All right, then, marry me.”

            She turned her face to meet his, touched his cheek.  “What?”

            “You heard me.”

            She shook her head and giggled.  “You’re asking me here?”

            “Fine.  I’ll wait.”  He slowed down to long, deep strokes, and she curled toward him, her head on his shoulder.  “I love you.  I mean it.”  Her fingers clutched into the short hairs at the nape of his neck, and as quickly as that, his self-control was gone.  There was no way to get fast or deep enough to keep up with the wave that hit him, and he fell against her trembling, momentarily exhausted by the effort.

            He stood holding her against him for a long time; he was so spent and so enamored that she was the one who got uncomfortable first.  “Alistair,” she muttered, kissing his cheek.  “We’re half naked and surrounded by dead dwarves.”

            “It must be Thursday,” he said, kissing her back.  “Sorry.  You get me over waiting for perfect romantic moments, and the next thing you know, surrounded by dead dwarves seems perfectly okay.  I’m no good at moderation.”

            “Well.  They’re fresh, and they’re not darkspawn, so we’re not beyond hope yet.”

            “Give me time.”

 

 


	20. Dark as a Dungeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And what makes people stop feeling better is the Deep Roads, broodmothers, and Branka. Oh well.

            There were a few more days of peace as the wheels of dwarven politics slowly turned.  “Tsk, these things take forever here,” Zevran complained.  “Clearly Orzammar needs more and better assassins.”

            The main point of interest in the meantime was that Zevran had acquired a _nug_ for Leliana.  She was quite pleased, and insisted on calling it _cute_ , even though it looked like a freakishly large, bald, and exceptionally ugly rabbit.

            “She’s _not_ ugly,” the bard cooed, stroking its pink head.  “She’s at least as cute as Bouche.”

            Sten agreed with Alistair.  “The mabari is a useful companion.  _This_ is not so much a pet as an ingredient for stew.”

            Leliana clutched the hairless creature to her in horror.  “Don’t say such a thing about poor little Coco!”

            “Just don’t be surprised if ‘poor little Coco’ ends up as mabari chow,” Alistair said, for which she punched him in the shoulder.

            It didn’t happen, though.  Strangely, in fact, Bouche seemed to adopt Coco as a sort of puppy, letting her follow him around and scrounging vegetables out of the garbage for her.  The owner of Tapster’s was not pleased, but Leliana was so delighted that she wanted to decorate the two animals with matching bows.  _That,_ Bouche did not allow.

            When news came again from the assembly, it was no better than they’d hoped:  there was still such a deadlock over the succession that no other issues could be addressed, including the treaty with the Wardens.  Any additional clout Harrowmont had gained from their help was being counterbalanced by Bhelen’s people objecting to the degree of influence coming from outsiders.  Ironic, given that he’d originally billed himself as the one who would reach out to the outside world – but not surprising, certainly not since they’d had to start fighting off bands of his zealots when they went out shopping for supplies.

            The only answer, both sides agreed, was to seek out the counsel of a Paragon:  and the only Paragon thought to still be alive was Branka, who was lost somewhere in the Deep Roads.

            “So,” Philoméne summarized, “to convince them to fight a major incursion of darkspawn, we have to fight a different major incursion of darkspawn for them.  I suppose I can’t call it unfair, although it’s hard to see what we’re really gaining.”

            “Darkspawn that die below ground will not face us above it,” Sten pointed out.  “It would be one of the more useful things we have done on this journey.”

            “I hate to say it,” Alistair sighed, “but at this point it’s politics.  Whether or not the dwarves are that useful against the Blight, we still need them against Loghain at the Landsmeet.  If we have just Eamon’s men and the Circle, it shows he’s not really uniting the country.  If we also have the Dalish and Orzammar, he’s unpopular with the neighbors, and _that_ doesn’t sit well on a new King.”

            “Whereas _you_ come with all of them in tow,” Morrigan purred.  “The noble blood shows itself at last.”

            “That’s not what I’m saying _at all._ ”

            “Why not?  ‘Twould make you far more interesting if it did.”

            “He’s not going to be the King,” Philoméne told her sternly.  “He is a Gray Warden.”

            “Hmph.  _You_ are a Gray Warden.  _He_ is a love-sotted Templar who follows you about.  But if you say we must do this, then we must.”

            He knew Philoméne did not want to listen to him bicker with Morrigan constantly, but surely she had to learn to stop saying at least that one thing.  “Stop calling me a Templar,” he muttered.

            Luckily, the ugly turn things might have taken from there was cut off by crashing and shrieking noises, when Coco leapt up onto the vanity in the women’s room and knocked down most of their toiletries.  That shifted everyone’s focus to packing, once the new round of threats to the nug’s life had subsided.

            They were stopped a bit short of the gateway into the Deep Roads by an exceptionally drunk and red-haired dwarf who, at first, seemed to be asking after the “Gay Warthuh.”  By his description, the wanted creature was female, seven feet tall and heavily armored, with keg-sized breasts.

            Philoméne smiled politely.  “Sorry, but none of the Gray Wardens I know look like that.”

            Alistair held in his laugh.  She’d told a _joke._   “Ooohhhh,” he said, nodding sagely.  “ _Gray Warden_.  That’s what he said?  I don’t recall knowing any _Gray Wardens_ who meet that description either.  Bit of a shame, really.  We could have introduced her to Sten.”

            Somewhere beneath a sea of ale, the light went on in the dwarf’s brain, and he introduced himself.  Oghren, Branka’s husband.  He was angry that it had taken a political stalemate to get a search party out after his legendary wife, but he was willing to take what he could get, provided they let him accompany them.

            “Look,” Alistair frowned, “no offense, but can you even walk straight?”

            “ _You_ look, you sod-sucker!  I’m the one who knows where she was going.  I know what she was gonna _do._ ”

            Philoméne shook her head at him.  “I’m not sure what a sod-sucker is supposed to be, but I’m sure it’s not something I want you calling Alistair.  Anyway, this is going to be very dangerous.”

            Oghren’s eyes lit up.  “Warrior caste, mistress.  Maybe there’s not a lot of things I’m good at, but I can kill darkspawn with the best of ‘em, drunk or sober.”

            And so she let him come with them, as she did every other lost soul they came across.  It was hard to decide whether he was worse than Morrigan or not.  He wasn’t overtly mean like she was, but he was appallingly crude, and certainly he _smelled_ worse.  Of course, the crudeness and the smell did annoy Morrigan, and that was in his favor.

            The Deep Roads, the preferred place of death for Gray Wardens through the ages, went on forever.  In the quiet places, especially where signs of the grand architecture of dwarven ruins remained, it was hard for Alistair to decide whether to feel reverent or morbid.  When they were fighting off mobs of darkspawn or deepstalkers or _spiders,_ it was easy.

            The trek went on for – well, he could not even say “for days,” because there was no way to tell underground, especially without even the cycles of noise and quiet of city life to guide him.  They walked, they fought, they ate, they took turns sleeping, and then they started the cycle over again.  Meanwhile, they found the first signs of Branka’s party, and pieced together her story from Oghren’s drunken muttering and Branka’s journal:  she’d left her husband in disgrace to search for a legendary anvil with her lesbian lover.

            It was a rich field for mean jokes, and he saw both Zevran and Morrigan realize it at the same time that he did; but there was noise off in the distance that had to be attended to.  Shouting.  Comprehensible _words._

            They cornered the shouter in a little side-cave, and he turned to look up at them with his head cocked at a peculiar angle, a deranged grimace on his face.  But for that, he looked like a dwarf.

            “Ruck’s shinies,” he insisted, glancing back at the boxes around him.  “Find your own.”

            “Who would bring a madman out this far?” Morrigan asked.

            Alistair shook his head.  “It’s an early stage of the Taint.  He must have ingested darkspawn blood somehow.”

            “Ruck gets hungry.  Nothing else to eat out here.”

            Morrigan recoiled with noises of disgust, but Philoméne stepped forward.  “Your name is Ruck?  I met your mother.  She misses you.”

            The tainted dwarf shrank back, hurt in his eyes.  “No, pretty lady.  No mother.  Tell mother Ruck is dead.”

            She turned and looked up into Alistair’s face.  “There is no cure, is there?”  He shook his head.  “Then… perhaps it would be kinder.  Very well, Ruck.  When I go back, I will tell her you died.”

            “So kind,” Ruck cooed.  “So beautiful.  Stay here.”

            Her eyes rounded, and Alistair’s hand rested instinctively on his sword hilt.  “I can’t stay, Ruck,” she said.

            “Ruck hears the song, too.  The beautiful song in the darkness.  But Ruck is afraid to go.  The man and the pretty lady are here following the song, Ruck can feel it.”  He looked up earnestly at Philoméne.  “Pretty lady is too good for the darkness.”

            She frowned and took a step back.  “I… thank you.  We will not trouble you again.”  She left quickly, Alistair and Morrigan following her.  Philoméne waved the others into motion and they hurried out of the abandoned thaig, following their evidence into the Dead Trenches.

            “He _liked_ you,” Alistair hummed, once they were far enough away for it to be too creepy.

            “He _felt_ us,” she answered.  “I know they all do, but – this is the first time I’ve really thought about the Calling.  I suppose we’ll hear it eventually, even if we stop the Blight.  There will be archdemons left somewhere, and sooner or later ‘the man and the pretty lady’ will have to go to them or die on the way down.”

            He collared her to plant a light kiss on her forehead.  “Try not to worry too much about it now.  There are lots of things that could kill us before then!”

            She chuckled.  “Helpful.”

Not far into the Dead Trenches they crossed the line being held by the Legion of the Dead.  Stern creatures, more tattooed than Zevran; but they recognized Gray Wardens and respected their shared duty against the darkspawn.  In fact, they were the one thing that finally made sense of how admiringly Duncan had once spoken of the dwarves.  Then again, there’d been no lack of darkspawn well behind the line the Legion was defending, which seemed to negate the point.

On the other hand, it was true that there were _lots_ more of them from there on.  The party wasn’t more than a day or two past the Legion when they had to cling helplessly to a cliff ledge, staring into the chasm below as thousands of them marched under the –

Under the dragon.  Under the archdemon.

She didn’t sense them there, in the midst of so many of her real followers:  still, the brush was enough to kill their progress for the rest of that cycle of wakefulness.  It felt like hours before any of them even spoke, and when Philoméne did, she said something very odd, even for her.  “He used to be beautiful.”

“What?”

But she got frustrated instead of explaining.  “I know he was.  It can’t just be that I’m already that far gone!  Morrigan, you know, don’t you?  You saw?”

Morrigan nodded slowly.  “Indeed I did.  They did not begin as archdemons, you know.  He was an Old God before he was tainted.  No doubt that is what you saw.”

“Ah.”  Now that he knew what was going on, he snuggled into Philoméne from behind.  “No, that must be a mage thing, not a Warden thing.  He chilled me to the bone.”

She turned enough to press her cheek into his chest.  “Me too.”

He kissed the part of her hair, and she relaxed a little.  That was the end of morbid talk for the moment:  it was not long before Morrigan walked away in disgust from their cuddling, and the next hours passed in a way that at least suggested a normal camp evening.

When they moved on again, they found that plenty of darkspawn had stayed behind after the big march.  Worse than that, they reached a point where even the stone walls seemed overgrown by something – unpleasantly like rotting flesh.

Worse than _that…_ they found Hespith, Branka’s lover.

It took a while for them to get that information out of her, in between verses of some horrible poem she’d committed to memory, describing her party’s fate in terms more gruesome than he liked to think about.  She was clearly tainted, and further gone than Ruck:  patches of her skin were putrefying, her eyes glassy and hopeless.

She ran ahead of them, telling bits of the story as she led them forward.  She told them how much worse the fate was of women captured by darkspawn than people above ground knew, how they were sped through their fall to the taint by rape and forced cannibalism, how they became something… different from the men, something she failed to describe.

And then she no longer needed to describe it, because they _saw_ it.  The Broodmother, a great oozing pustule of flesh with tentacles.  Even Zevran howled in disgust as he flung himself towards it – and was grabbed up by a tentacle close to the body, at the same time as another one threw Leliana aside.

Philoméne was starting to crackle with a spell unfamiliar to him, and she looked at him for just a second, shrieking.  “ _Help him!_ ”

Alistair heaved more tentacles aside with his shield, trying to reach the Crow.  Philoméne’s spell hit, and it was terrifying:  something like the localized storm she often used, except that the mist was black and the lightning violet, and he gathered from the Broodmother’s screams that something particularly painful was happening.  Zevran dropped to the ground, and after only a quick shudder lunged again toward the vast body, daggers raised.  Alistair followed with his sword, and he could feel lightning and fire and arrows flying around him.

A final scream as Zevran leapt up onto the shoulders, with a grace Alistair did not have time to envy, and plunged his knives into its fat-ringed throat; Alistair slashed across its belly with all the strength he had left.  The horrible thing thrashed and slumped forward.

Maker’s… he’d had enough trouble, back when he was new to the Wardens, wrapping his head around how an elf became a shriek.  He was to believe that this had once been a _woman._

Zevran jumped back down onto the stone floor and, as he tended to do after the worst of moments, made a blank mask of his face and started making jokes.  “Which of us should get the points for that one, do you think?  And do you suppose the dwarves who used to live here had bathhouses?  I could use a long soak.”

Alistair’s attention wandered from him to Philoméne, who was walking toward the massive corpse, gaping and looking more and more distressed.  Suddenly she rounded on Alistair shouting.  “He never told me this!  He never _told_ me!”

            “Who?”

            “Duncan!”  She stalked toward him as if she was going to fight him next.

            “I… don’t think he knew.  I never heard anyone refer to… Maker’s breath.  It is awful.  I can hardly imagine – ”

            She grabbed him by the shoulders, only growing more urgent, perhaps even verging toward panic.  “The Joining.  We say it gives us immunity, but it is really only resistance, isn’t it?  We’re visible to them, and in the end we hear the Calling like they do.  Am I immune to this?”

            He wanted more than anything in the world to tell her that she was, to grab her to him and promise her that the thing she feared was impossible.  The truth nearly choked him on its way out of his throat.  “I don’t know.  I’m not sure anyone knows.”

            “Alistair.”  She was whispering now, pale and trembling.  “It is one thing to fight and think that I might die fighting.  This is – this is too much.  I don’t – I don’t know if I can – ”

            He held her waist, miserable for her and with her.  “We’re close now, Philoméne.  When we find Branka, we’ll find a way to settle up with the dwarves, and that will be the last of the contracts.  We’ll have our army.”  He brought one hand up to wipe a tear from her face with his thumb.  “I wish I could tell you to go back to the surface and wait, but I can’t.  I don’t even know if you’d be any safer there, until the Blight is over.  And anyway, we’re lost without you.”

            “Allow me to say something?” Zevran’s voice cut in, and they turned to look at him.  “I understand this must feel like a private moment, but we are all _here_ , are we not?  It does not take any secret ritual to understand the special problem this… revelation causes for our leader.  But I think I can help.  I can make a promise a lover could not be asked for.”  He turned slightly to regard Philoméne with a surprisingly compassionate look.  “I will never let them take you alive, my Warden.”

            She sniffled and nodded, and Alistair felt her body start to relax.  “Thank you, Zev.  That does help.”  Zevran smiled and bowed as she broke free of Alistair’s embrace and smoothed her hair.  “Give me just a moment to collect myself, and we will go forward.  There is still work to do.”

            With that she paced away from them, and Alistair leaned over to hiss into Zevran’s ear.  “What was that supposed to mean?  That I _would_ let them take her alive?”

            Zevran shrugged.  “You would die trying to defend her, but that is not quite the same as what I said.  She was not worrying about devotion, only about the particularly gruesome fate of women who are captured alive by darkspawn.  So you tell me.  If we were overwhelmed and our escape seemed truly impossible, could you bring yourself to kill her?”

            That was an unfair question.  He would kill everything that came at her.  He would will himself to live until everything that threatened her was dead, no matter what.  Yes, and he would cling to that bit of denial all the way to their Calling.  And when they heard the Calling he would live long enough to kill every single darkspawn they found, and they would die in the very center of the world, the last tainted people in Thedas.  It could work, couldn’t it?

            The assassin nodded, knowing that the silence was his answer, and walked away.  Meanwhile Philoméne and Leliana had investigated the rest of the room and found a passageway, and Leliana was gathering the others to move forward.

            Philoméne came back to him, calmer but not less troubled.  “This will be known,” she hissed.  “It will be written in the records of the Tower, and then we will send copies to Weisshaupt and the heads of all known nations.”  She paused for a deep sigh and then looked up into his eyes, desolate.  “We will recruit no women as Wardens.  I will be the last.”

            It was clearly not the time to discuss whether the Wardens who would someday finally arrive from Orlais would agree.  He only nodded.

            Beyond the passageway was Branka, who admitted cheerfully that she had not only allowed but _caused_ the fates of Hespith and the Broodmother, in the interest of having a steady supply of new darkspawn to throw into the traps that lay ahead of her.  Now she wanted to throw Philoméne into them instead, in exchange for Branka’s support in the Assembly.  All for the Anvil of the Void, she said.  Anything was worth it for the Anvil.

            The traps were not too dreadful except the last, a long and grueling battle against waves of spirits.  The truth of the Anvil was worthy of the whole stinking ordeal:  its great power was to create golems, but the price of each golem was a life, a person killed and spiritually enslaved within the creature.  Caridin, himself the Anvil’s last victim, had been trying to prevent it from ever being used again.  Branka caught up with them and was not moved even by this.  Only the power mattered, and she was willing to fight and die for it.

            Branka was the first person Alistair ever saw Philoméne kill without a visible sign of regret.

 

 


	21. Loyalties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eamon sinks his teeth into Alistair.

            On their first step into the air and light of the surface world, Philoméne threw her arms out in joy, and laughed, and started prancing around the nearly empty market square.  Alistair felt nearly as giddy just watching her.  It was wonderful.

            Caridin, the Paragon turned golem, had killed himself, but not before forging them a crown to bestow upon the next King of Orzammar.  Naturally, there’d been one last violent uprising when Philoméne named Harrowmont to receive it, but now all of that was finished, the alliance was sealed, and they were free to end their long, soul-wearying stay among the dwarves.  Even the Legion of the Dead was impressed enough with the elven mage to offer her their support, which did not automatically come along with the King’s.

            A quick stop at the Tower to check up on the dwarf who had asked to study there – purely on an academic level, her being a dwarf – and all their business with dwarves and Orzammar would be finished.

            Finished, that was, except for Oghren, who had decided to follow them to the surface, and was now staring up into the sky as if he expected it to attack him.  If he could tolerate the amount of open space, Oghren was apparently going to be with them for a while yet.

            “That is the sun,” Morrigan said helpfully, “from which reasonable people get their light.”

            “ _Lazy_ people who can’t be assed to make any, you mean,” Oghren snorted, but then started leering at the witch.  “Some of you don’t seem to take long about making yer clothes either, not that I’m complaining.”

            They carried on arguing most of the way to the Tower, but Alistair hardly minded.  For him and Philoméne, emerging from the Deep Roads felt like being freed from a death sentence, and it made this leg of their journey into a playful romp.  They raced, they played with the dog, they climbed, they sneaked away from camp to make love in the starlight.  Short of a bed, it was everything he wanted for them.

            He was not forced to confront their reality again until they were camped just outside the Tower.  Philoméne had opted to go in on her own, to “make things quick.”  That left Alistair standing watch with Zevran, and it was the elf’s choice of conversation topics that shattered the fantasy.  “Next we go back to Redcliffe, do we not?  To Arl Eamon.”

            Alistair frowned.  He had done everything he could to get Arl Eamon and his plan out of his mind.  “Yes.”

“You have thought about what you are going to do now?”

            “Whatever I have to do, I suppose.”

            There was a heavy silence before Zevran spoke again.  “They would never let her be your queen, you know.”

            “I’m not going to be king.”  He looked up, frowning.  “I’m _not_.”

            “You just said you would do what you had to do.  So how do you know?”  The elf started tossing his dagger up into the air and catching it, a particular alarming habit he had when thinking.  “When I first joined you, I was sure I was going to have my way with her.  I’m sure you noticed.  She is beautiful, and it would have been an easy way to make sure she kept me around.”

            “Yes, I did notice.  But you stopped trying.”

            “Do you know why?  I was showing off, the way I do.  Trying to impress her with how worldly I was, because I could tell that she was an innocent.  She told me that all I knew about the world was sex and blood, and so I would never have either one from her.”

            Alistair smiled a little imagining it.  It sounded like her.  “It’s frightening when she does that, isn’t it?”

            “She is my Duncan, Alistair.  That is what I am telling you.”  He looked down sternly.  “I am very fond of you, but even that is because she made it possible.  If you hurt her, you will be my Loghain.  That is not the way I would wish for this journey to end.”

            An irrational shift of the blame seemed like a good answer.  “So you’re threatening me?  You’re the one who _wanted_ me to start having sex with her, you know.  You’re the one who took such great delight in coaching me.  I might never have gotten the courage up in the first place if not for you.”

            Zevran glanced away.  “I know that.  What can I say?  I am new to the idea of people connecting to each other with any depth of attachment.  I have no experience dealing with the, ah, complications that come with such things.  My point is that what you have with her – not everyone has this, even once.  Do not squander it.”

            He certainly didn’t want to.  The problem was that they would be dealing with Arl Eamon, and what Alistair _wanted_ was not necessarily high on the list of Arl Eamon’s concerns.  But they had to go to Redcliffe to get Eamon’s army, and they had to play along with the idea of calling the Landsmeet to deal with Loghain.  He knew that, and if he had not, Philoméne would have been the first to remind him.

            So when they got to Redcliffe, Alistair tried to focus on the positive.  With Connor alive and Eamon well, Isolde was in a good mood; with Alistair’s real lineage established, she was even fairly pleasant to him.  The city was starting to recover from being ravaged by demons.  The weather was lovely.

            Eamon was excited to proceed:  he even had a suit of dress armor waiting for Alistair.  “You must arrive in Denerim looking the part,” he said.  “You must stride through the gates as Maric’s son and Cailan’s brother.”

            “Are you serious?  When was the last time you saw me _stride_ anywhere?”

            That got him a familiar paternal frown.  “I am very serious, Alistair.  A good portion of our success rides on your keeping a noble bearing.”

            “I’m a Gray Warden!  I used to sleep in the _stable!_   Right, sorry,” he added, pinching his nose as he felt Eamon staring at him from one side and Philoméne from the other.  “I know.  I know what we need.  I just – I’ll work it out by the time we get there.  All right?”

            Philoméne put a hand on his shoulder.  “You’ll be fine.  I’ll be with you the whole time.”

            He put a hand over hers, smiling in relief.  “You’d better be, or I’ll probably just pass out.  Anyway, I think at this point you’ll probably have more sway with a lot of the nobles than I will.”  At that, he saw her eyes narrow just slightly and her focus shift, as if she was deep in thought.

            “True enough,” Eamon said.  Alistair turned to look at him.  The Arl looked thoughtful as well, but his eyes were on where the two Wardens’ hands were touching.  “You are becoming almost a legend, my lady; but that is going to work both for us and against us.  Once we are in Denerim, I will have a better idea of where allegiances truly lie and whose can be shifted.  I ask you both to follow my lead where that is concerned.”

            “Of course,” said Philoméne.  “Your expertise with politics far exceeds ours.”

            That pleased the old man.  “Just so.  You are a very reasonable woman.  I’m sure our heads together will prevail.  Let us arrange rooms for you tonight, and we will set off for Denerim in the morning.”  With that, he left them to hail servants for the errand, and Alistair finally let himself bristle visibly.

            “ _Your heads together will prevail,_ ” he snarled.  “Meanwhile, I’ll be a pretty piece of meat in expensive armor.”

            “Don’t let him get under your skin.  He’s just trying to help.”

            “Right.”

            That would mean that Eamon considered it “helpful” to lodge Philoméne and Alistair at opposite ends of the estate, as far apart as possible.  Even if he’d noticed their connection and objected to it, he had to know that was only an annoyance and not a deterrent.  Was Alistair supposed to be too lazy to walk that distance?  Too stupid to remember the way across the place where he’d grown up?  Afraid to cross the paths of elven servants Isolde had spent years demoralizing?

            Actually, he could imagine Eamon thinking any of those.  “ _You_ think I’m competent, don’t you?” he whined at Philoméne when, after a reasonable wait, he went to her quarters.

            “I could not do without you.”  She wrapped herself around him reassuringly, and it was impossible not to spend the night in her room.

            With her he slept soundly, and it was not until morning, when a mousy elf housemaid innocently came to see if Philoméne needed anything, that Eamon crossed his mind again.  He was lying with an arm draped over her, both naked beneath the sheets, which he remembered when the maid gasped.  His first instinct was to hold Philoméne closer to him protectively, before it dawned on him that he was the one who was not supposed to be there.

            “Ah, good morning!” he said as cheerily as he could, willing himself not to blush.  He was getting a little bit better at that, at least – all the practice with Zevran.  “We don’t need anything at the moment.  We’re fine.  Philoméne, are you fine?”  Still only half awake but already smirking, she nodded.  “We’re fine,” he said again.  “Thank you!”

            The maid curtsied deeply, glancing between the two of them wide-eyed, then focused on Alistair.  “I believe the Arl is looking for you, ser.”  With that, she scurried away.

            “Of course he is,” Alistair sighed.  “Watch, now.  He’ll think I’ve run away.”

            “He won’t,” she assured him, resting her head on his shoulder.  “You’ve never run away from anything.  You stand there and face whatever gets thrown at you, no matter how much you complain.”

            “That sounded so nice until the last bit.”

            “My point is that if he doesn’t know at least that much about you, then he’s a fool.  And he doesn’t seem like a fool.”

            Indeed Arl Eamon did not accuse him of running away, or look surprised that he was still there, walking out into the main hall alongside Philoméne.  Instead, he greeted them both with the gracious smile that Alistair knew he used to mask his disapproval.  “Lady Warden!  Breakfast is laid out; after that, my retinue is ready to leave whenever you wish.  Alistair.  Would you stay and speak with me for a moment?  A family matter,” he added politely.

            Here it came.  Philoméne retreated and Eamon advanced on him.  “I’m _not_ going to be King,” he said at once.  “This is just an excuse to convene the nobles so we can expose Loghain, right?”

            Eamon sighed.  “Someone does have to be King, Alistair.  At the very least, you must look the part when we arrive.  You grant me that much, do you not?”

            Alistair knew Eamon did not mean to let it rest there, but it was true anyway.  “For long enough to start the Landsmeet, yes.”

            Eamon nodded, satisfied for the moment.  “Then in that light, I must ask you to do something.  This – relationship? Dalliance? – between you and the Warden.”

            “Relationship,” Alistair frowned, overpronouncing it for emphasis.

            “Whatever it is.  It needs to be kept out of sight of the banns.  Such a thing would be considered highly improper.”

            Oh, even better than he’d thought.  “Why?  Because she’s done so much for Ferelden?  Because she’ll look like a better choice for King than I am?”

            Eamon’s face darkened.  “You know why.”

            “Of course.  Proper nobles only have elves as mistresses on the side, and they keep them secret.  I’m not going to do that to her.  Not even pretending.”

            “Alistair – ”

            “Alistair what?  ‘Be sensible and do what I want?’  No matter how it feels or whether I think it’s right?  I am not a _show pony!_ ”

            Eamon shook his head.  “Alistair, listen.  I know you did not find me… warm enough, growing up.  I want you to believe that I have done the best I could for you.  I did not take you in to be a show pony.  I took you in because I loved your father.”

            Alistair was unmoved.  “Well!  _Loghain_ loved my father.  That worked out well for Cailan.”

            Eamon’s eyes flashed with uncommon anger, just once.  “Do not even insinuate – ”  Quickly, though, he recollected himself.  “This is not about you and me, and it is not about you and the Warden.  It is about Ferelden, and how it may be saved.  I am asking you to put your country first, Alistair.  At least for now.”

            Alistair could feel the fight leaving him.  It was the kind of tactic he could never defend himself against, and Eamon knew it.

            “I am not asking you to send her away, after all,” Eamon went on.  “Far from it!  She’s gathered great renown, and having her stand beside you will carry weight.  Just don’t stand close enough to invite gossip.”

            His shoulders slumped forward, and what protest he had left was quiet.  “There’ll be gossip regardless.  She’s gorgeous.”

            “But there is gossip people know is speculative, and gossip people accept as truth.  Do not lend it credence by your own actions.”  He paused to confirm Alistair’s resignation, then patted his shoulders.  “Thank you.  I have always depended on you to do the right thing, and you never disappoint me.  Now come, you should eat something before we leave.”

            Just like that.  _Break your own heart, because it’s for the best.  Good boy.  Have some eggs._   There was something in the air in Redcliffe that regressed him to nine years old.  Sleep with the horses, join the Templars, put a claim on the throne, ice out your girlfriend.  Keep jumping, and someday, you’ll almost really be his son.

            _Just for now_ , Eamon had said, but Alistair knew better.  In Denerim it would be “We’ve got to go through with the Landsmeet,” and at the Landsmeet it would be “You’re the only one they’ll accept as a viable candidate,” and after that it would be “We’ve come this far, you can’t leave the country without a leader.”  And then there he’d be, King against his will, with the choice of either asking Philoméne to let him treat her like a disgraceful secret, or losing her entirely.  The distance he was being asked to keep from her now was practice for the distance he’d be asked to keep forever.

            And he couldn’t see any way out.

 


	22. Noblesse Oblige

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eamon's Kingmaker Show opens to negative reviews from Loghain and Ser Cauthrien. The rescue of Anora goes sideways.

            “For this, we allow ourselves the horses,” Eamon smiled.  “This is not the time for secrecy:  we will make an entrance.”

            That sped things up a bit, at least, so there would be less time spent en route to Denerim with Eamon constantly interposing himself between Alistair and Philoméne.  (“Keeping you honest,” as he cheerfully called it.)  The nights, during which Alistair was expected to stay with Eamon and his entourage while Philoméne slept with the rest of the party, were particularly brutal.  The first night the subject came up, Philoméne looked at him standing there, disappointed that he did not contradict Eamon’s suggestion; but all the same, when Zevran started to scowl at both of the men, she held him back from speaking.

            The rest of the journey, Philoméne was reserved but pleasant, and Zevran was civil, and Alistair stewed in his misery alone.

As they rode, Eamon briefed them on the current tides of power among the nobles.  Several, of course, had been lost at Ostagar, and their armies weakened:  Wulff lived, but his lands were in chaos.

            “What about Teyrn Cousland?” Alistair asked.

            Eamon shook his head sadly.  “The Couslands were massacred in their own home, I fear.  They stand accused of being traitors to the throne, but I’m sure you can guess what that means.”

            “That they would have sided with us,” Alistair sighed, running a hand through his hair.  “Maker’s breath.”

            “And you were poisoned,” Philoméne added.  “Not actions becoming to the word _noble._   Are you sure it is wise for us to arrive this openly?”

            “Some men find power to be an intoxicant,” said Eamon.  “But yes.  Treachery works best when it is kept secret, lady Warden, and I assure you that by now, many eyes are on us.  But now you see, Alistair,” he added, turning toward the young man, “why I had to insist that you make the claim and not myself.  Only you or Teyrn Cousland would have been equal to Loghain by natural right, and given so much tumult we must have at least that on our side.”

            “Yes, I see.  So who rules the Cousland estate now?”

            “Arl Howe.”

            “ _Howe?_   That weasel?”

            “I’m afraid so.  ‘That weasel’ is still the Arl of Amaranthine, and those lands are historically connected.  He’s also been spending a great deal of time in Loghain’s company, I’m told.”

            “That’s wonderful.  Convenient, really – all the rotten eggs in the same basket.  Oh, unless.  What’s going on with the Arl of Denerim?”

            “He’s dead, and his son is missing.  Would you like to guess who is currently governing in his stead?”

            “Howe,” Philoméne answered.  “What a busy man.”

            “Yes, and he is profiting very nicely from the current state of affairs.  I would suggest that friends of his are likely to be enemies of ours.”

            That much seemed self-evident, but their enemies did not wait long to confirm the thought:  Loghain and Howe were waiting for them together on the steps of Arl Eamon’s Denerim estate.

            Mustn’t lunge forward and kill him.  Not the right moment.  Instead he stood frozen with Eamon and Philoméne, chanting to himself that he must let them do the talking.

            “Eamon!” Loghain said, and curse him, he still had the voice and bearing of someone who _ought_ to be worthy of following, more so than Alistair suspected he had himself.  “So determined to cause trouble when we already have enough.  Who is this poor boy you’ve dressed up to pretend to be a King?”

            “Come now, Teyrn,” Eamon answered quietly.  “I know that you remember Alistair.  Maric’s youngest.”

            _Remember,_ was it?

            Loghain’s voice dropped to a murmur.  “He was better off where he was, Eamon, as I suspect you know perfectly well.  But you’d prefer to have a puppet.”

            Philoméne interjected.  “What he would prefer is a leader who was ready to move decisively against the Blight.”

            The severe-looking woman next to Loghain snapped at her.  “Quiet, churl!  Your betters are talking!”

            As Philoméne subtly pressed a shoulder into Alistair to keep him from stepping forward to defend her, Loghain intervened.  “No, no, Ser Cauthrien.  This is none other than the Gray Warden of whom you have heard so many rumors.  I am acquainted with her.”

            “Indeed,” Philoméne smiled, bowing her head to him.  “And I owe you an apology.”  She paused to let them all stare at her in shock before she explained.  “When we met, you asked me to pray for King Cailan and for all of us at Ostagar.  I fear that I must have misread your meaning that day.”

            He looked at her intently, though his exact feeling was difficult to read.  “And I yours,” he said.  “I assure you that once Ferelden is united, we will stand and triumph against the Blight.  Unfortunately, for as long as you stand allied to Arl Eamon in this bit of mischief, you will be a hindrance to that process rather than a help.”

            Eamon crossed his arms behind his back, cool and collected.  “I am sure that Ferelden will be united when the Landsmeet is over.”

            “Mmm.  Yes.”  Loghain frowned, but left them at that.  Alistair felt himself start breathing again when the teyrn and his people had taken their last steps off of the stairs.

            “Well!” Eamon sighed.  “That was bracing.”  With that he led them into the estate.  Alistair remembered the place vaguely, though even before he’d been sent off to the Templars, he’d spent less time here than in Redcliffe. 

            Once they were inside, Philoméne gave him a sympathetic smile.  “Relax.  You were perfect.”  She stepped in ready to embrace him, and he – remembered that Eamon was standing there, watching for him to comply with the demands of his role.  He raised a hand between them, keeping her at a distance.  Then he closed his eyes and felt slightly sick.

            “Oh,” she whispered.  “I see.  I understand, Alistair.”

            He did not dare to look at her.  Eamon said something about how she should go and take the pulse of the arriving nobles while he and Alistair made sure quarters had been made ready for everyone.  Yes.  No good _Alistair_ going to talk to anyone; no good his being seen with Philoméne in anything approaching a social setting.  She agreed to whatever it was that they were talking about, and slipped away.

            This was going to be so hard.

            This time, Alistair’s room was adjacent to Eamon’s and down at the dead end of its hall.  There would be no coming and going from it without being seen, not that _that_ was Eamon’s intention, of course.  It was just because they would be spending so much time together, following the movements of Denerim’s political machinery leading up to the Landsmeet, and refreshing Alistair on proper court demeanor.  Didn’t that sound nicer than cuddling with the woman he’d wanted to marry?

            Oh, Maker, Eamon would eventually start coming after him to choose a _queen._   A queen who wasn’t Philoméne.  He felt sick again, enough to have to lean against the wall with his hand to his mouth, his heart racing.  He’d had enough trouble going along with other people’s plans for his life when he hadn’t known what he wanted instead:  now that he did know, it was going to rip him to pieces.

            _This will stop Loghain,_ he told himself, _and that will make it possible to stop the Blight.  It has to be done._

            “Alistair,” Eamon said, and the look on his face suggested that it was not the first time he had said it.  Alistair ran his fingers through his hair and tried to pay attention.  “Did you hear what the girl said?”

            What girl?  Had there been a girl?  “No.”

            “One of Anora’s servants has come here in some kind of panic.  I think you should come and talk to her with me.”

            Anora’s servant was an elf woman, Erlina.  When she’d told most of her story, Philoméne came back with Zevran and Leliana in tow, and Eamon had her begin again.  They were to believe that Anora, Loghain’s own daughter, was being held captive in the Arl of Denerim’s estate, that that Arl Howe might well kill her and try to blame Arl Eamon for it.

            “Even Loghain can’t have agreed to that,” Alistair protested.  “His own daughter!”

            Erlina moaned, and as she spoke again her Orlesian accent got steadily thicker from anxiety.  “It may well be that the teyrn does not know.  But Arl Howe is a bloodthirsty man, and he knows that my lady Anora has never trusted him.  Please, ser, he will _not_ hesitate to kill her!  I know it!”

            “Why resort to us?” Philoméne asked quietly.  “Why not send you to her father?”

            “You have come to accuse the teyrn of many dreadful things, have you not?” Erlina frowned.  “My lady is coming to fear that some of them are true.  Her husband is dead, and her father might have been the cause.  She does not know how far to trust him, or any of his men.  It is a dreadful position for her.”

            Alistair shook his head.  “It’s a dreadful position for _us_ , if it’s a trap.”

            “Lady Warden,” said Eamon, “I ask you to go to Anora’s aid.  She has been a good queen, and very popular in the courts.  If this is true, it is a worse fate than she deserves.”

            Not to mention what a disaster it would be if Howe did manage to blame Eamon for her death.  Every thought and every motive was tainted by blasted politics now.  Still, it was the right thing to do.  “Very well,” Alistair sighed.  “If Philoméne agrees, we will go.”

            Eamon looked at him, alarmed.  “Alistair – ”

            “ _We._   Will go.”

            “He is our cornerstone, Arl Eamon,” Philoméne interjected.  “If there is really some danger, he will be invaluable.  _And_ he will be the rescuer of Cailan’s Queen, his brother’s widow.  It is the stuff of ballads – in fact we could have the ballad written and sung in the streets almost instantly.”

            She was so good.

            Eamon hummed in thought, reluctant, but then nodded his head, frowning.  “True enough.  Take the party you deem best, lady Warden.  But go carefully.  We cannot really afford to lose either of you, let alone both of you.  Nor would I wish to.”

            Philoméne bowed and led Alistair and Erlina into the hallway.  “Zevran and Leliana if we’re trying to be subtle,” she mused aloud.  “They can’t have gone far.”

            He still couldn’t look her in the face, and he put concerted effort into keeping a respectful distance between them.  Even so, it stung to realize that she was not trying to bridge the gap.  Either hurt already, or willing to let it go for the sake of the plan, which he didn’t really like much better.  The whole thing was hateful.

            He distracted himself by talking to Zevran rather than her, once they caught up with him.  “Did you learn much about the nobles?”

            “Oh, they are much like Antivan nobles, really.  They dress nicely, drink expensive wine and brandy, and complain about their difficult lives.  And occasionally make plots against each other.  Nothing worthy of the Crows, however, at least not that we heard about.”

            “Being in charge _is_ difficult,” Alistair muttered.  “Trust me, you wouldn’t like it.  Actually, remind me sometime that we should go out for expensive brandy.”

            Zevran grinned.  “I myself prefer wine, but I will drink whatever the other fellow is buying.  Now if you will pardon me, I see that our escort is a brunette.”  With that, he dropped back a step to strike up a flirtatious conversation with Erlina.  At first Alistair wondered if Leliana wouldn’t be offended, since she was right there; but to the contrary, after a moment she fell into step with them and started to flirt with them both.  So that was odd.

            It ended abruptly: suddenly they were surrounded in a blind alley, and Zevran was in a shouting match with a fellow Crow who had been sent after him, but seemed reluctant to actually kill him.  Actually, the discussion sounded more and more like a quarrel between ex-lovers.  Alistair thought that perhaps they’d broken up over infidelity, which would have seemed logical enough except that it seemed to be on the wrong side:  “I know you’re still mad about Rinna,” the man was saying.  “But you don’t have to do this.  If you come back with me now, I can still make it like it was.”

            When Zevran refused him, the other Crow sneered.  “Oh, I get it.  Which one are you fucking?”

            _That_ was what it took to get to Leliana.  “Me,” she purred, notching her bow.  She didn’t get off a lethal shot, but it was the opening the rest of them needed to move.  Philoméne scorched a gap through the circle of assassins for Erlina to run through and hide behind barrels, then stood before them to cover her as the others advanced up the stairs toward the leader.

            It was Zevran who got in the death blow, and then stood there quietly over the body as the others finished off the stragglers and came to him.  Leliana gave a short squeeze to his shoulders, and that got him to shift his focus away from his former comrade, toward Philoméne.

            “There it is, my Warden,” he sighed.  “Taliesin knew me best; now that he is gone, I should have little trouble staying ahead of the Crows.  Technically, I could leave you now.”  He paused, then gave her a surprisingly coy look.  “Or I could stay, if you prefer.”

            “I do prefer,” Philoméne smiled.  “I like having you with us.”

            He grinned.  “Good!  I like being had.  Well, let us get back to finding this Anora person.”

            “The _Queen_ ,” Erlina howled.

            That brought a fresh problem into Alistair’s mind, which became the new chant running through the back of his head for the rest of the walk.  _Eamon won’t ask me to marry Anora.  Even though she’s already the Queen.  It can’t possibly get that bad._

            When they reached the Arl of Denerim’s estate, Howe’s interpersonal skills were showing even outside, where workers were threatening to riot.  That meant that there were guards aplenty in the front, so Erlina led them around to a more obscure entrance, then urged them to disguise themselves as guards and then let her provide a distraction while they hid behind “the bushes.”  Only there were no bushes anywhere to be seen, so that plan fell apart rather quickly in favor of killing the handful of men and going in.

            Then there were more guards, of course – and then, between them and Anora, a magical barrier Philoméne was at a loss to take down.  Howe’s pet wizard, Anora’s voice told them, in a voice that sounded as much irked as frightened.  He would have to be hunted down before they could retrieve her; Erlina stayed behind to be near her lady and to keep out of harm’s way.

            Still more guards, and then another prisoner, this one a _Warden._   Riordan, from Orlais, who said he was the only one who had been sent.  Brilliant.  A Blight forming in Ferelden and all the Wardens of Ferelden suddenly gone, so naturally, that only warranted _one_ man being sent.  He left on his own, promising to rejoin them at Eamon’s estate.

            That left them to explore the Arl of Denerim’s unpleasantly large and extensively furnished dungeon and torture chamber.  Yet more guards, but they were in stride now, and this set fell quickly.  Alistair actually _beheaded_ one of them.

            Zevran sighed and rolled his shoulders.  “Alas, I have grown too used to exotic enemies with you, my Warden.  I am finding so many armed men prosaic rather than stimulating.”

            “We’ll be back to darkspawn soon,” Philoméne assured him, stooping to search one of the fallen guards.  “Now, help me find the cell key.  I imagine there will be prisoners here that may be worth releasing.”

            Indeed there were:  one lord’s son still on the rack; a bann’s brother imprisoned; an elf condemned for attacking the old Arl of Denerim’s missing son, whom he accused of raping and killing Alienage women, including his bride.  Philoméne released them all.

            Unfortunately, Howe himself was visiting one of the many cellblocks, along with his mage and, for joy, more guards.  Howe being an educated man, he at least knew a more interesting list of insults to throw at them as they fought.  Philoméne roasted him while Alistair held down the mage.

            Zevran had to complain again afterward.  “Tsk, you could have let me handle the mage, Alistair.  I told you, guards are getting boring.”

            “Mm-hmm.  When you learn how to negate magic, let me know, and I’ll start giving you the mages.”

            “You speak as though I had never killed a mage before.  My second contract for the Crows was a mage.”

            “Yes, well.  I doubt you were going to get the time to seduce this one.”

            A strange voice interrupted them.  “Is someone else out there?  If you are someone _reasonable_ , you must let me out of here!  I am the Arl of Denerim!”

            Alistair frowned.  “We heard he was dead.”

            An exaggerated sigh.  “My _father_ is dead, but I am _alive._ ”

            How interesting.  Perhaps he and the elf who had attacked him had both been thrown into cells at the time, the matter to be settled later, and then forgotten in all the turmoil since.

            Philoméne, ever reasonable and willing to hear excuses, approached Vaughan’s cell with just the same bearing as she had the others.  Unlike the other prisoners, however, he immediately started barking orders at her as a “knife-ear” and raining down threats and abuse at everyone he could think of.

            She left him there.  Zevran chuckled as she walked away, but he and Alistair both had to be pushed onward by Leliana when the man screamed after them that she was a whore.

            The mage dead, they were able to retrieve Anora, who emerged wearing the same sort of uniform Erlina had wanted the rest of them to wear.  The Queen and Philoméne stood regarding each other silently for a moment, which gave Alistair time to compare them.  Even in the ill-fitting suit of armor, it was obvious that Anora ought to be an attractive woman, well-proportioned in both face and body by human standards, with a properly regal bearing.  But in Alistair’s head she was irredeemably _Cailan’s queen_ and _perhaps_ my _queen_ and _not Philoméne_ , and every distinction between her and the elf made Anora look more like an ogre.

            “We must move in secret,” she said quietly to Philoméne.  “If we are caught, even my father’s men will think they are defending me by giving me back to Howe.”

            Oh yes, mustn’t forget that part, _Loghain’s daughter._

            Philoméne inclined her head politely.  “Howe is dead.  But if this plan is still needed, I will not expose you.”  She looked back at Alistair for something – affirmation?  Perhaps a hand of reassurance; perhaps Anora was becoming in her head what she’d already become in Alistair’s, an embodiment of everything about the next step that he’d been trying not to face.  And for that exact reason, he could not reach for Philoméne’s hand the way he wanted to.  He just nodded agreement.

            “Howe is dead?” Anora pondered this.  “Yes, this must still be done.  I do not know which men of his or my father’s want me dead and which do not.  And… I do not wish to be a part of this madness any more.  I have been little more than a hostage ever since Cailan died.”

            He didn’t really want to believe her, now that he already had his heart set on despising her; so when Ser Cauthrien appeared in their way with a shockingly large number of fresh guards, he was happy to assume it had been a trap.  Zevran, for his part, seemed about to take it as a personal challenge – a test to see if guards were interesting if there were enough of them – but Philoméne raised a hand to stop him.  “They’ll focus on me and Alistair,” she hissed at him.  “Take the others and find another way out.  I’m counting on you.”

            Zevran nodded, eyes narrowed, and fell back; Philoméne stepped forward, light dancing in her hands.  “Did you want me to come?” she smiled at Ser Cauthrien.  “I’m here.”

            “So I see, Warden.  And with the pretender as well.  Take them!”  They were swarmed, the clanging of so much metal in an enclosed space almost deafening; he barely had room to move.  He couldn’t even see Philoméne, just occasional flashes from her casting – and then a shriek he was very afraid was in her voice, and then the flashing stopped.  He barely had time to panic before his own vision went black.

 


	23. D'une Prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing says "I'm sorry" like making out for the amusement of a prison guard.

            _Maker, please.  I will do anything You want.  I will be King.  I will marry Anora.  I will marry_ Morrigan. _Make her eyes open.  If I have to lose her, don’t let it be like this._

            He’d come to stripped down to his smallclothes in a cellblock they hadn’t even discovered yet, Philoméne unconscious beside him.  And unconscious she remained, and the longer she lay there without moving the more alarmed Alistair was becoming.  But _he_ could not move her, for fear of some hidden damage that he could make worse.

            Once her eyes finally started to flutter open and she drew her hands toward her face, though, he fairly lunged toward her and caught her up in his arms.  “Thank the Maker,” he whispered.  “I don’t know what I would have done.”

            She moaned and brought her arms up around him.  After a moment, her hands traced across the skin of his shoulders as she realized that they were bare; the gentle touch made him shiver with all the feelings he’d been trying to train himself to repress.  He buried his face in the nape of her neck and closed his eyes.  “I’m so sorry.”

            “Alistair.  Where are we?  Why are we – ”

            “Oh, that?  We’re captured.  Do you know what we missed seeing down in all of Howe’s dungeons?  _More_ dungeons!”  He ran his fingers into her hair and clutched it.  “Please, Philoméne.  I’m apologizing.”

            “For what?”

            “For being cold to you.  Believe me that it wasn’t what I wanted.  But Arl Eamon said – for the Landsmeet – ”

            She kissed his cheek.  “Yes, I know.  He told me the same thing.”  She drew back her face just enough to look into his eyes, that doting smile lighting hers.  “I _said_ I understood.”

            He chuckled in relief.  “I didn’t believe you.  I thought you meant ‘I understand that you really are a bastard after all.’”  And yet, being out from under that weight only seemed to bring him keener awareness of the heavier one.  “He’s going to make me King.  If I’m – ” he could hardly bear to say it.  He took her face in his hands, looked into her eyes to force himself.  “If I’m King,” he said quietly, “I’ll never be able to see you again.  I won’t be able to bear it.”

            She took one of his hands in hers, pulled it down to her mouth, and nipped at it.  “You will not be King.  I have already forbidden it.”

            “Short of our staying here imprisoned, how do you intend to prevent it?  Because believe me, I’d love to know.”

            “I am working that through.  We do learn some things in the Tower besides spells.  You have to trust me.”  Her lips brushed against his, and all the pent-up anxiety and longing burst inside him; he crushed her mouth with his and pulled at her waist, sighing as his palms found naked skin.  He found himself stroking her sides with increasing heat, and wanting to pull her into his lap to grind their bodies together.

            But he did have some lingering awareness of where they were.  He broke from the kiss, although he instantly regretted it, and smiled to cover the irritation.  “This has to be the worst possible time for this.”

            Her eyes glanced past him for an instant and then focused back in on his eyes.  “No,” she breathed.  “Go along.”  And she pulled their faces back together, stroking at his lips with her tongue to entice him back into action.  He was – pointless to deny it – rather torn.

            There was a slight creak of armor behind him, and he began to understand.  He tried to relax back into the kiss again despite the suspicion that someone was watching them.  She sighed as if pleased, and although he wasn’t sure whether it was honest or part of the show, his response was the same.  He gathered her back toward him and stroked her back as their kiss deepened.

            Another creak, and then a voice.  “Lucky bastard.  Who do you have to be to get an elf wench in your cell with you?  King of sodding Antiva?”

            Alistair glanced over his shoulder toward the guard – he looked, as he sounded, like a man who had come up from the gutter, a commoner made good rather than a lesser noble.  “I’m – ” Philoméne bit at his ear and then shushed into it.  “I’m… a bit busy here.  Do you mind?”

            The guard snickered.  “Maybe not, if you at least turn her around so I can see better.”

            “It’s all right,” she breathed into his ear.  “Lure him in.”

            _Elf wench._   He wasn’t one of the guards who had taken them:  he didn’t know who they were.

            Alistair rose to his feet, then pulled Philoméne up after him, a little less gently than he would normally be inclined to.  Turning his back to the wall, he moved her between him and the guard, then pulled her back toward him by the wrists and kissed her again.  Over her shoulder, he could see the man watching with interest.  _Lure him in._   He eased his hands down to the small of her back, past it, squeezed gently.  He heard the guard’s breath hitch.

            He should be mortified, given how bashful he was about such things; he should be angry.  Part of him was.  But there was also a small, whispery part of him that seemed to take satisfaction in putting on the display.  _Yes, she is beautiful, and I am the one kissing her.  Look at how lucky I am._   His eyes drifted shut, and he pressed her tighter against him, sliding his hands under her smallclothes onto the flesh beneath.  That was intoxicating.  He had not been with her this way since Redcliffe, and he was on the verge of not caring about Arl Eamon _or_ about being watched, either one.

            Philoméne let out a sweet little whine, and that in turn called forth a heavy sigh from the guard.  “Have you had this one before?” he asked.

            Alistair quickly checked her eyes for approval before he answered.  “Yes,” he said, in his best noble tones.  “And for that she’s probably going to end up on the rack right next to me, poor little thing.”

            “That is a shame.  Turn her around for me.”

            He hesitated to go that far, but the hesitation itself seemed to work in their favor:  it reminded the guard that he was in an unaccustomed position of power.  “I’m in charge here,” he snarled.  “I can make things better for you, or I can make them much worse.”

            After one more second reading the resignation in Philoméne’s face, Alistair took her by the shoulders and spun her to face the guard, holding her there by the wrists as she dropped her head and looked shy.  His helpless captive elf wench.  Maker, the man had no idea.  She leaned back into him, rolling her head back lazily onto his shoulder.  At her prompting, he lifted her hands, and she slid her torso ever so slightly from side to side against his, lips just parted, a fantastical combination of reluctance and willingness that Alistair had to make an effort not to fall victim to himself.

            The guard had clearly seen enough.  “Give us a taste,” he rasped, “and I’ll see what I can do for her.”  He had the key – he was opening the door –

            When he had closed it again behind him, Alistair whirled Philoméne away to the side and charged him, knocking him back into the bars before he could respond.  Then the mock-noble grabbed the guard and heaved him head first into the wall opposite them with all his strength, knocking him unconscious.

            Alistair caught his breath, then stooped to retrieve the key.  Meanwhile, Philoméne was not only giggling madly but _hopping_ in pure, excited delight.  Adorable, but odd.  He smiled up at her, watching for a moment before he finally asked, “What is this, exactly?”

            She almost couldn’t stop laughing for long enough to tell him.  “Leliana told me that kind of thing could work, but I didn’t believe her!  I wouldn’t have even thought of it if you hadn’t been kissing me!”

            “Ah.  That was a trick of Leliana’s, was it?”  He rose and kissed her hand.  “It certainly did work.  I hope you’re not going to let the power of knowing you’re beautiful go to your head.”

            Only now, they were in physical contact again, just the two of them in almost nothing.  Having her hand, he was compelled to pull her close enough to kiss.  Kissing her, he wanted to do more than that.  He was holding her tight against him, breathing her in deeply, when he caught himself.

            “Now,” he smirked.  “ _Now_ is the worst possible time for this.”

            She smiled.  “This is, yes.  Hold the thought for later.”

            Damn.  “There had better be a later.  I have your word that we’ll have a later?”

            “You have my word.”

 


	24. Follow Only Beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair steals an opportunity to be with Philomene away from Eamon's interference. (sex chapter)

            Philoméne was in the room Arl Eamon had set aside for Anora, talking to the Queen for what felt like hours.  In that time, Alistair absorbed an unusual rush of relieved affection from Eamon, then a more expected scolding for endangering himself, then gratitude that Anora had been saved.  Then thoughts about the advantages and disadvantages of having Anora on the premises:  could she be trusted?  Would Loghain find out she was here and do something horrible?

            Eamon seemed rather leery of her, in fact, which was nice in that it seemed to make it unlikely that he would suggest marrying her.  ( _Trust Philoméne.  Trust her.  She promised.  Never mind that she can’t possibly promise such a thing.  She has… powers.  Or something.)_   Of course, Alistair wasn’t sure whether to trust Anora either, and Philoméne was taking forever with her.

            He convinced Eamon to let him up for air for a moment, during which he found Zevran in the library, of all places.  “You met Anora.  Do you think we can trust her?”

            Zevran smiled.  “Never trust a beautiful woman, Alistair, but always keep her close anyway.”  A shrug as he shifted from the joke to the real answer.  “The first thing she did on arriving here was to go to Arl Eamon and insist that someone be sent back for you.  That is worth something, I think.  Had she consented to trapping you – ”

            “She would have left us there.  Unless it was just to impress the Arl.  Gah, I don’t know.  I hate politics.  I’d rather be dealing with darkspawn.”

            “I can only give you my assessment as an Antivan, my friend.  If her impulse is innocent, she is our ally.  If she is totally Loghain’s, she is a pawn, and hardly our greatest problem.  But,” he smirked, “if she is a _real_ Queen, she will betray her own father for you if you look stronger than he is.”

            Alistair shuddered.  “Remind me never to go to Antiva.”

            “It is a beautiful country.  Not a very good place to be important, however.”

            A maid hurried into the room, announced that Philoméne had emerged and was in a decidedly unpleasant argument with the Arl, asked if Alistair would kindly intervene, and hurried away again.  Alistair trotted back up the steps and heard the tail end of something Eamon was saying about the vital importance of preserving the Theirin bloodline on the throne.

            There was no time for Alistair to come in fussing about that, because Philoméne was actually losing her temper.  He stood and stared in wonder instead.

            “I am so sick of all this talk about _pure blood,_ ” she snapped.  “The dwarves, the Dalish, the humans, all so obsessed with this idea of whose blood is purest, like that will make them better.  I have been drowning in blood for months now, Arl Eamon, and it is all the same.  _Red._   So no, I do not care what bloodline takes your precious throne.  I care that Alistair does not want it.”

            There was a flash of indignation in the Arl’s eyes, and Alistair stifled a gasp at her boldness.  Philoméne stopped, turned her head slightly, realizing Alistair was there, and sighed.  Quickly pulling herself back into proper diplomatic form, she tried to rebuild.  “My lord, you have said yourself that Anora is already a capable ruler.  That is the most important thing now, surely?  Alistair has no idea how to be a king.”

            “No,” Alistair agreed quickly, his voice still tense.  “No, I don’t.  I’ve told you both that a hundred times.”

            “Does he not?  He is educated and honest, brave and strong.  He is always eager to do the right thing.”

            She _laughed_ at him.  “The qualities of a knight, not of a king, even in children’s tales.  He is also tender-hearted and modest, which while virtues, would actively do him harm as a king.”

            “You cannot think that I would leave him unguided and defenseless,” Eamon scowled.

            “Ah,” she said, and suddenly a coolness came over her, and even without seeing her eyes Alistair guessed them full of thoughts that took her some distance ahead of this debate.  “Of course not.  It’s just that I always picture him all alone under that burden, since I – very well, Arl Eamon.  I apologize for becoming… so emotional.”

            She was backing down.  Eamon had riled her to the point of shouting and then backed her _down._   He gave her a tolerant smile.  “No harm done, Warden.  I appreciate your desire to protect him, if you understand that you need not protect him from me.  In the meantime, I have learned of another situation we might be able to use to our advantage.”  He proceeded to tell them something about the Alienage that Alistair barely heard, so focused he was on getting away and talking to Philoméne separate from the Arl.

            This time he did not bother to argue that the two of them should not both go, so Alistair chased hard on her heels.  “Maker’s breath, Philoméne – ”

            “I have it in hand, Alistair.”

            “’I apologize for becoming so emotional’ means you have it in hand?  He’s _won_ , hasn’t he?  He always wins.  Tell me the truth.”

            She stopped and gazed into his eyes.  “All right, I admit that I lost my temper.  But I did not lose the war.  The truth is that we are not yet in the Landsmeet.  The truth is that I now know where every player stands.  The _truth,_ my love, is that Eamon now sees my objections merely as those of a woman afraid of losing her man, which allows him to both listen to them and dismiss them.”

            Oh.  “And… that’s what you want?”

            “What fire cannot burn down, water wears down.”

            “…What?”

            She smiled and gave him a quick, teasing hug.  “Not enough time around primal mages, obviously.  Let us go and see about the elves.”

            When they’d fetched Leliana and Zevran and told them the mission, Zev looked around the four of them, troubled.  “Far be it from me to break up our happy foursome, my Warden, but… are you sure this is the wisest combination of people to bring into the Alienage?”

            “What do you mean?” Philoméne asked.

            Zevran raised his brows.  “Well.  You and I should get on well enough there, but… I know that you have heard the word _shem_ before, yes?”  He waited for the term to register with her.  “That hostility is going to be especially high in a slum full of sick elves.  And no one we have with us is more of a _shem_ than Alistair.”

            “Hey,” Alistair frowned.  “I mean, all right, it’s true I’m the only male human we’ve got – funny, that, I’ve never thought about it before – but – ”

            “And if Leliana makes one noise that sounds like Chantry talk, it is only going to be worse.”

            Leliana started to protest, then fell into a pout.  “I wouldn’t! …Well, yes, I probably would.  He may have a point.”

            “Alistair is going,” Philoméne insisted.  “But Leliana can stay behind if you think that’s best.  We’ll take, hmm.  Morrigan.”

            “Oh, Maker, no,” Alistair moaned.

            “I need someone who can strike from a distance.  And if they won’t like Leliana, they won’t like Wynne.  Morrigan is the least, um, human of our humans.”

            He sighed.  “I suppose that’s true enough.  Fine, then.  Try to keep her from talking, would you?”

            Zevran shook his head.  “Two _shems_ arguing constantly.  A Templar – yes, object if you like, Alistair, but it is still visible on you for those with any experience in such things.  A Templar arguing with Ferelden’s most obvious apostate, and an elven mage between them.  If the point is to get into a lot of fights, my Warden, this will succeed famously.”

            She crossed her arms.  “Fine.  I know you’re right.  Sten in his place, then.  Better?”

            Zev nodded agreement, but Alistair put his hand on Philoméne’s shoulder and looked at him pointedly.  “All right.  But do you think that it could wait a little longer?  Could I escort you as far as, say, the Gnawed Noble?”

            Zevran smirked.  “Yes, I see no reason why you could not go that far.  Still safe from angry elves, but out of the sight of certain overbearing noble benefactors, is that it?”

            Alistair cast his gaze down to the floor.  “Yes, that would be it, more or less.”

            “In that case, let us gather Sten and Morrigan and be on our way quickly.  I do not want to stand between you – well,” he added with a coy smile.  “Not in that sense, at least.”

            “Good.  Meet us there, then.  I, ah, don’t particularly need to walk with Sten and Morrigan, to be honest.”

            He still forced himself to walk without an arm around her, though that would have been his preference.  He distracted himself with idle talk.  “You still amaze me, you know,” he told her.  “You’re playing some kind of complex game with Eamon that I don’t even understand, and yet you can’t remember that I’m a _shem._ ”

            “Would you prefer it the other way around?”

            He chuckled.  “No, not at all.  Do you want to ask for the room, or shall I?”

            “I’ll do it.  It will look more sensible if anyone recognizes either of us.”  She smiled, just a hint of color coming to her cheeks.  “And word will likewise be slower to spread.”

            He could already feel his blood quickening.  “Maker’s breath,” he sighed.  “I wish the inn were closer.  I don’t know if I can make it all the way across the marketplace not touching you.”  Of course, he hadn’t known he could propose a tryst at an inn, and in front of witnesses at that, until he’d done it.

            “Flattery,” she said; but all the same, the ghost of a smile stayed on her face throughout their quick-paced walk.

            Alistair had never spent much time in the Gnawed Noble – when he was with Arl Eamon he did not need a room, and as a child he had no use for the tavern.  He supposed he should not have found it surprising that the building itself was more spacious and attractive than poorer travelers’ taverns he’d seen, nor that some of the nobles gathering for the Landsmeet were passing their waiting time in idle drink and gossip here.  No doubt some illicit affair was going on in at least one of the rooms, as well.

            During the moment he spent wondering whether his own planned pursuit could now be considered _illicit_ , Philoméne acquired a key and brought it back to him.  “End of the hall,” she said quietly.  Her hand brushed over his just a little slower than was strictly needed.  “Go ahead and take off your armor; I will come in just a moment.  I have a couple of hellos I must – and anyway,” she interrupted herself, with a bashful smile, “it will look less obvious.”

            “Of course.  Don’t be long, my love.”  He watched as she backed away a step, then turned to walk toward a back table where two of the younger nobles were talking, approaching the woman with the bow – was that Bann – ?  But never mind that.  The room, and the head start on the armor.  The _armor_ had been a ruiner of momentum more than once, and he was in no mood for it today.

            The room was spacious, the bed wide with soft burgundy sheets, all as befit the wealthy clientele.  Alistair removed the armor and set it aside, musing over how he would not be needing it today regardless, since Philoméne would not be taking him into the Alienage with her.  He understood the sense of it, but it still rankled a little bit to be left behind.

            For a moment, in his eagerness, he considered stripping off his clothes as well, but then he thought that would be too much.  The shirt came off, but he left it at that.

            Philoméne opened the door, entering with a soft but pensive look, and he realized that given time to think, they would have one of those awkward moments where they stood and just looked at each other, mutually uncertain of how to start.  Even after all this time, they were still working their way through that, still learning how to make transitions.  He decided to cut past that by moving in and pressing her against the door the instant it was shut behind her, giving her a soft kiss at the base of her jaw.

            She gasped, then chuckled, then turned her mouth toward his as her fingers slid down his bare chest.  He bit back the first impatient instinct that wanted to either rip her clothes off or just shove them out of the way.  There was space and time enough, here, to do the whole thing properly.  So he was deliberately slow in untying her lacings, in slipping the fabric toward the floor as his hands and eyes moved down over her arched body.  Biting her lip, she ran her fingers through his hair; then she tried to drop to her knees with him, but that he forbid, placing a hand on her stomach to hold her in place against the door.  The other hand and his mouth roamed over her hips and thighs, and she whimpered as her knees rubbed together.

            He brought a hand up between her legs, parting them; then higher, easing the folds apart to reveal the pink jewel he had touched but never tasted.  He kissed it gently, which made her gasp again, louder, wide-eyed.  Yes, he thought, suppressing a smile, that was the response he had been promised by his tutors.  His tongue made slow circles, and she panted; soft strokes, and she whimpered and held his head in place.  More pressure, lips engaged, chin pressed against her, and she writhed so wildly against the door that it made repeated banging noises behind her, and he had to grip into her thighs to keep himself from being thrown back.

            It was not as it was with his fingers:  there was no such thing as too much until the moment when she threw her arms up and back and her body froze there, mouth open as if to scream even though the sound she made was only a loud, tensed sigh.  Then she flung a hand downward to push at his forehead as her legs buckled, and he released her to fall to her knees, hazy-eyed.

            He was saturated with her scent, and his face was damp.  And she was radiant, and her face so relaxed and soft, and – he clutched her by the hair and pulled her to him to bite his way down her neck.  It had been much too long since he’d felt her breasts brush against his body, her sigh in his ear –

            There was a knock at the door.  “Mistress?  Is everything all right in there?”

            The rattling of the door had attracted attention.  He buried his face against her throat, unsure of whether he wanted to laugh or growl.  “I’m fine,” Philoméne called, though still a little bit breathless.  “Fussing with the lock, that’s all.”

            The moment’s pause did serve to remind him that there was a perfectly nice bed not far away.  As the footsteps faded back down the hall, and Philoméne relaxed and giggled and put her arms around his neck, Alistair rose up, lifting her with him, and carried her there to lay her down.  That made her giggle again, and she kicked her feet a little.

            He shook his head adoringly at her as he took off his trousers.  “Have I ever told you that you’re adorable?”

            She smiled.  “I could hear it twice.”

            His hand always looked big and ruddy on her skin.  He studied her curves and hollows as he joined her on the bed, sliding his knee between hers, kneeling between her legs.  Her eyes were full of the same adoration he was feeling, which both enticed and mystified him as always.  He wanted to keep watching her.  Tenderly he stroked the insides of her thighs; then he watched her eyes widen as he lifted her up behind the knees, spreading his bent legs under hers to hold her up as he pressed –

            Ah.  This was always the part where all the words in his brain melted.  A favorite moment.  At this angle every thrust was deep and intense, and he could see the jostling of her breasts in time with his movements, and the sweet crinkling around her eyes when she was totally immersed in what he was doing to her.  In fact he felt increasingly torn between moving even slower to enjoy the view, and falling upon her at full speed to feel every bit of her pressed beneath him.

            He did neither:  he brought his hands behind her waist and lifted her towards him, hugging her close as she wrapped her arms around his neck.  Her legs curled around his back to draw them tighter, flexing slightly in time with him.  Even better, she moaned and nipped at his ear and the base of his throat.  His eyes rolled shut, and he felt his fingers clutching into her flesh as he came, shuddering.

            Immediately he fell forward kissing her, trying to soak her in through every sense, memorize her.  _In case – no, don’t be morose.  It won’t be the last time.  She promised._   It was a few moments before he relented, and a few more before he realized how the last position had tightened his thigh muscles.

            “Mmm.”  Philoméne petted his hair, her eyes half-closed.  “They’re bound to be here by now.”

            “And you don’t think the group you’re taking is polite enough to wait?  Well, let’s be more accurate.  Sten is already angry that there won’t be darkspawn in the Alienage, Morrigan is insulting more nobles, and Zevran is trying to find out which room we’re in so he can peek before we get dressed.”

            She smiled.  “Exactly.  We need to have our clothes on before his are off.”

            Still, once they were dressed, he cajoled one more long embrace out of her, to last them until after the Landsmeet _(and no longer than that)_ , before they opened the door hand in hand, remembered even that had to wait, and walked out into the tavern.  Their friends were indeed waiting.  Sten and Morrigan were eager to get moving, but Zevran paused to regard Alistair with a knowing smile.  The others were already near the exit when the elf leaned toward Alistair’s ear, taking a long, slow inhale before he whispered.

            “Wash your face before you go back to Eamon, my friend.  The smell tends to linger.”

            He left Alistair blushing.

           

 


	25. I Have Promises to Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Philomene is getting tired of being underestimated, and the time is ripe for her to start showing a few of her cards.

            People out in the wide world seemed so quick to make assumptions.  An elf, thus a servant.  A woman, thus a weakling.  An elven woman, thus a conquest.  A mage, thus a foe of the Chantry.  A person who agreed to none of these without it being a point of bitter anger… thus a naïve waif who understood nothing of man’s darker machinations.

            She’d grown up in the _Tower._

 

*

 

            She was thirteen.  It was her age group’s turn in the library, and she was browsing books about elves for pictures of Dalish tattoos when the First Enchanter _and_ Senior Enchanter Uldred came to join them.  She watched from the table as they separated and mingled amongst her fellow apprentices, making what seemed like polite chatter.

            This one, she thought, tracing the drawing with her fingertip.  Like a tower on the brow and temples on the cheekbones.  She knew instinctively that it was the one she wanted, even though no book could tell her what it represented, and she suspected that no one she would ever have access to would know how to make the pattern so elaborate.  Perhaps if she meditated on it she could develop a simpler version, something that still captured the spirit.

            The apprentices panicked and preened and struggled to make good impressions.  Philoméne was unconcerned with that kind of thing.  From the day she’d come to the Tower, Irving had taken an interest in her – protected her when larger children picked on her, asked her thoughts.  Treated her like the family neither of them had.

            Eventually, though, he joined her at the table, taking a seat next to hers and glancing into her still open book.  “This again,” he said, in his usual warm voice.  “I do not believe the Dalish take their marks at your age.”

            “But by the time they do, they have seen them many times on the faces of their elders.  I have to accustom myself to them somehow.”

            He chuckled.  “I suppose you have a point.”

            “I’m surprised Uldred is spending so much time on Jowan.  I see him more likely becoming an Isolationist.”

            Irving raised his eyebrows at her.  “Is that the only reason you can imagine the Senior Enchanter taking an interest in Jowan?”

            She licked her teeth and glanced down at her book.  “It would be impolite to say.”

            “Nonsense, Philoméne.  You and I always speak candidly.”

            “In that case, yes.  You and Uldred are taking our measures as to which factions we might later join.  That is the only reason Uldred would take an interest in the apprentices, based on what you have told me; and it is the only reason the two of you would come together, and spend more time talking to Jowan than to me.”

            He sat quiet for a moment, then laughed again.  “You see straight through to the bone, my dear, as always.  The higher you rise in the Circle, the more important that is going to be.”

 

*

 

            It was true, she reflected now as she moved through the muddy back streets of the Alienage with Sten rather than Alistair as her muscle, that she’d managed to stay naïve about men’s attentions for a long time.  Oh, she’d always been able to detect interest; but Jowan’s had been blunted by timidity and Cullen’s by oaths, and their protectiveness combined with Irving’s had kept everyone else at arm’s length from her.  Not until she was out in the world was she ever compelled to think about what was beyond smiles and innocent flirtations.

            She’d been so lucky in the men who accompanied her.  Without either Alistair or Zevran, her education in that part of life could have been much worse.  It had been on her mind ever since she’d met Soris in Howe’s dungeons; finding the elf again here and hearing his account of the plague recalled it.

            Morrigan’s mind, in contrast, was clearly on the atmosphere.  “This place is filthier than I could have imagined was possible.  Why does any elf willingly live this way?”

            “Probably because they prefer it to execution,” Zevran replied.  “Not everyone is as lucky as I am.”

            Sten shook his head at the easy distraction of his allies and bowed to speak into Philoméne’s ear.  “The men guarding the hospice are Tevinter.  I doubt the sincerity of their concern.”

            “As well you might,” she agreed.  “Let us see if there is a back way that we can go in.”

            “We could defeat them easily.”

            “We could also injure bystanders.  We should be sure of the truth before we resort to violence.”

            Sten nodded and straightened his back, ready to follow.  In fact there was a back way into the hospice, and an elf rather than a Tevinter watching it, and he was easily persuaded by Philoméne and Zevran that it was appropriate to let them inside.

            The cages and a letter revealed the truth:  the “healers” were slavers.

 

*

 

            Her thought, in the moments between Lily’s arrest and Duncan’s arrival to rescue Philoméne from a similar fate, was not for her safety.  She was crushed.

            “Irving,” she said softly.  “I never wanted – I have disappointed you.”

            He sighed and shook his head at her.  “I am disappointed that you did not come to me with this.  I am disappointed _for_ you, because this will end your life in the Tower.  I am disappointed in myself, because I counted on your wisdom to exceed your age because of your intelligence.  You have both compassion and insight, but you do not yet understand how low a man will sink when he is desperate.”

            It was only after the battle for the Tower that she understood how many ways he’d meant that.  He and Gregoir had known about Jowan; and because they suspected the presence of blood mages in the Tower, they had laid out the snare for him in the hope that he would run to his cohorts for help.  And that was their own failure, for not knowing that even if Jowan had been answering to Uldred, it was always Philoméne he ran to for help.

            If she’d come to Irving, he might still have found a way to salvage the plan.  Then again, perhaps she’d fallen under suspicion herself because she and Jowan were friends, and he’d been casting about for a way of undoing that without being accused of sheltering his favorite.

            Better a Gray Warden, after all, than a prisoner.

 

*

 

            She was ready:  she had collected all of her intelligence, all of her goodwill, all of her pieces.  She had gathered up her wisdom.  All that remained was to stride out in front of the whole noble court of Ferelden and bend it to her will.

            But then, she was a mage:  bending reality to her will was her specialty.

            In the long view, it was for the Wardens against the Blight, but the cold fact remained that in the short term, it all came down to influence and money.  _And so life in the world makes Lucrosians of us all,_ she thought, bemused.  _Not the fraternity I would have guessed for myself._

            “Are you sure Anora is going to support our position?” Eamon was asking her as she fussed with her sleeves.  “I have no doubt that she has ambitions of her own.”

            “I have faith that Anora will do the right thing,” Philoméne stated peacefully.  “However, it seems to me that we will make the best appearance by arriving separately.  Some of my party will stay behind with her, and make sure she arrives safely at a tactful distance behind us.”

            Eamon inclined his head politely.  “You think of everything.”

            “I hope so.”

            Alistair came around the corner to them, and even Philoméne had to admit that he looked princely.  All of his armor and equipment was cleaned and polished to within a hair’s breadth of glowing.  He had managed to focus himself on the matter at hand, as well, although she could still see a trace of worry in the lines around his eyes.  Either faith in her or anger at Loghain had finally allowed him to see the Landsmeet less as doom than as reckoning.

            All the same, he approached her with arms wide and embraced her, and for a long moment would not be moved, not even by Eamon’s stare.  “I love you,” he whispered.  “No matter what happens, whatever we have to do, that will not change.”

            If he was willing to behave so in front of Eamon, there was no reason for her not to.  She wrapped her arms gently around his waist and kissed his cheek.  “I know.  I love you too.  Faith, Alistair.  Focus on Loghain, and I will take care of the rest.”

            “Gladly,” he growled, and with that released her.

            Eamon gave a loud and pointed sigh, which Philoméne quickly countered by moving the subject forward.  “This is a vital moment,” she said.  “Ferelden must have a ruler who has her best interests at heart, and Loghain must face justice for his crimes.  Alistair, make sure everyone is in formation and we will be on our way.”

            Alistair strode away with will and purpose, and Eamon smiled down at Philoméne.  “You work miracles.  I can see him growing into his destiny with every step.”

            “He needs this for Duncan,” she murmured.  “I have not told him the rest.”

            “ _The rest_ , lady Warden?  Do you conceal something important from us at so crucial a time?”

            “Only from him.  Loghain was a great man before the betrayal.  Surely it took more than the threat of a few Wardens to bring him so low, even if they were from Orlais.”  She paused just long enough to pretend that the next part was a non-sequitur.  “If Alistair is King, Arl Eamon, who do you plan for him to marry?”

            Eamon grimaced.  “We have discussed this, lady Warden, and you have my sympathy, but it cannot be you.  Beyond that, let us focus on one thing at a time.”

            “But it seems to me that there are so few ladies left to choose from here in Ferelden.  I know your stance on commoners and knife-ears, and how widely they are shared.  An Antivan princess is out of the question if you don’t want Denerim to become a nest of assassins.  That leaves Orlais, does it not?  Perhaps you hope he will have a pretty Orlesian bride, like yours.”  She looked at him coldly, already assured of her theory by the look of growing discomfort with which he looked back at her.  “Perhaps you were already trying to acquire one for Cailan before him, even though Cailan had a wife already.”

            Eamon looked shocked and dismayed, and it took a moment for him to collect the little she allowed him of a response.  “You must understand – ”

            “I understand quite well.  You were matchmaking between Cailan and the Empress of Orlais.  What I want _you_ to understand is that Anora knew.  And her _father_ knew.  And that gives me a new perspective on where this madness actually began.  His daughter cast aside, and for the sake of marrying Ferelden back into Orlesian rule.  _That_ makes the first step of his descent sound much more reasonable, does it not?”

            His face was white, and he stood quite still.  “What is your intention, then?  To ruin us is to ruin your hope against the Blight.”

            “I would prefer not to reveal your part in recent history:  it would break Alistair’s heart, and that is never my wish.  You had no one killed or enslaved, as far as I know, so I am content to let the matter rest here, with the two of us knowing.  That said, once we step into the Landsmeet, my intention is that _you_ follow _my_ lead.  I promise you that I will act to protect both Ferelden and Alistair.”

            She could see him stewing over her words for a moment, but eventually he nodded.  “He told me that you were naïve, lady Warden.”

            “I’m a quick study.”

            Alistair came back at a trot and took his place between the Warden and the Arl.  He cast a steely look forward at the gate, then nodded, curling and uncurling his fingers.  “We’re ready.  Let’s go and see Loghain.”

            So at last it was time.  She would make it work.  She would give her lover the world by not giving him Ferelden.

 

 


	26. You Never Understood Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Landsmeet: Alistair versus Loghain and Philomene versus the throne.

            Ser Cauthrien let them pass on Philoméne’s request, casting her eyes down with a broken look as she told them what a great man Loghain had been before this madness had consumed him.  Philoméne nodded to her, face full of an empathy Alistair could not bring himself to share.  Sure, he’d admired Loghain as much as anyone else in Ferelden, once.  He’d put his faith in Loghain to carry the day at Ostagar, and that was where it lay dead, somewhere amongst all the other bodies.  Probably not much left of any of them but dirt by now.

            Still, it was hard to deny that he cut a better figure of a leader than Alistair did – and he was already in command of the floor, pleading his case to the arls and banns watching from the balconies.  His voice, his face, his whole carriage spoke of battle-hardened wisdom that Alistair knew he could not convey himself, but also of honor that Alistair knew to be a lie.

            He stepped forward burning with anger, dimly afraid of what he might say if he opened his mouth:  but Loghain saw him and spoke first.  “Ah, and here they are!  Arl Eamon and his puppet.  What a relief that the interests of Orlais will be represented after all.”

            Maker’s breath, was this still really about Orlais?  _Was_ Loghain crazy?  Alistair glanced at Eamon, whose face was dark with an unreadable complex of thoughts.  Philoméne’s hand gripped Alistair’s shoulder, and she was the one who answered.  “It is a miracle, is it not, that Arl Eamon is able to attend?  Given that you sent a blood mage to poison him.”

            “It’s true!” a voice cried from the right.  Alistair looked up to where the woman had risen to her feet.  Bann Alfstanna – she _was_ the woman he’d seen Philoméne speak to at the Gnawed Noble, he was sure now.  “My brother was one of the Templars who had the man in custody when Loghain’s people abducted them.  He was imprisoned by Arl Howe to keep him quiet!”

            Philoméne inclined her head.  “To my sorrow, good Bann, yours was not the only noble house that has suffered without cause at the hands of Arl Howe.  Loghain’s pet viper wiped out the Couslands as well.  Bann Sighard, how is your son?”

            The man she addressed clenched his fists, bitter.  “Alive, Gray Warden, for which I am grateful.  But the wounds from his torture in Howe’s dungeon were old by the time he was saved, and the healers do not know if they can restore him completely.”

            “Arl Howe is dead,” said Loghain.  “However grievous or – justifiable – his actions, he cannot be brought to real justice.”

            “But you can.”  Philoméne produced a set of papers Alistair had not seen before.  “It is not Arl Howe’s signature on these, Teyrn.  You are the one who sold slaving rights in the Alienage to a Tevinter mage.”

            There was a gasp among the nobles, indignant whispers about slavers being encouraged in Ferelden; Loghain’s eyes became unquiet, and then that was covered over by indignant anger.  “Enough of your fabrications!” he shouted.  “Of course the Gray Wardens are not concerned about the future of Ferelden beyond their own purpose – ”

            “You mean, saving Ferelden from the Blight,” she retorted, her voice as quiet and calm as his was loud.  “It seems to me a reasonable enough priority, when the darkspawn are razing Fereldan towns.”

            Above them, Arl Wulff was nodding, stern and sorrowful.  Philoméne was outmaneuvering Loghain, and he was losing his temper because of it.

            “Do not pretend you and Arl Eamon are innocent defenders of Ferelden!” he snapped.  “Not when you have taken my daughter, our Queen, as a hostage!”  Another ripple of alarm through the audience.

            _Hostage?_   Could he really believe that –

            “Those of her guards who _survived_ can confirm that you were there, Warden.  I’ve yet to receive a formal list of your demands, however.  Did you consider your wishes that obvious, or did you think I would not miss my own _child?_ ”  Loghain surged forward, and Alistair stepped between him and Philoméne for fear of the sudden violence in the man’s eyes.  “Tell me where she is!”

            “I am here, Father.”

            Anora, revealing herself at an appropriately dramatic moment.  Every head turned to watch her enter the hall, head held high, hands folded regally in front of her.  Alistair held his breath.

            “I was not kidnapped, Father.  I was rescued.”  She took a long, deep breath, then addressed the gathering as a whole.  “My lords and ladies… for the sake of Ferelden, this must end here.  My father has gone much too far, and has lost perspective on the needs of our people.  We must unite against the darkspawn, and we must do it now.  If that means that my father must be stripped of his rank and – ”  She paused, a brief flash of hurt on her face, and she cast her eyes down.  Her voice, however, remained strong.  “Then so be it.  Justice must be done.”

            Loghain shook his head slowly, clearly pained.  “Even you now, Anora.  What have they done to you?”

            He really was mad, Alistair thought.  He really had lost the ability to see anything but the shadow of Orlais.

            “This has gone far enough,” Arl Eamon frowned.  “I call for a vote.  Do we stand with Teyrn Loghain, or with the Gray Wardens?”

            It was almost unnecessary at this point.  Alistair mused on it as one noble after another declared that the Wardens were in the right.  Perhaps Loghain had been counting on them to stand on simple truth and not on politics – Philoméne had never even mentioned Cailan or Ostagar.  Instead, she had spent the time in Denerim courting arls and banns, rescuing their families and making sure they remembered _who_ had done it, finding tangible evidence of more visible crimes.

            And – he gasped as he realized it – she had made sure that _she_ was the one who had been seen doing these things, not Alistair.  On her all the risk, if she failed.  On her all the _attention_ , if she succeeded:  she, not he, would loom in their consciousness as their hero.  No great feat would be connected solely to him, inspiring others besides Eamon to wish him their King.

            Brilliant.  He prayed it was working.

            The decision was in favor of the Wardens.  Philoméne stepped once toward Loghain, one hand extended.  “Stand down peacefully, Teyrn Loghain.  Let us not prolong this.”

            “You are all traitors,” he growled.  “No, I will not stand for it.  I killed for Ferelden, and I will die for her if I must.  But I will not simply give over and let her be enslaved again by Orlais.”

            “This is not about Orlais!” Alistair snapped.  “This has _never_ been about Orlais!”

            “Please, Father!” Anora cried, hurrying forward.  “It’s over!  Don’t do this!”

            Philoméne stood firm.  “Are we to war openly, then, all your people against all of mine?  With your daughter and all Ferelden’s leaders caught between us?”

            He could almost see Loghain’s blood curdling.  “No.  An honest duel.  Would you like to fight me yourself, Warden, or do you elect a champion?”

            There was no hesitation.  “Alistair will be my champion.”

            She loved him.  Alistair stepped forward to receive the gift, a cold smile spreading across his face.  He and Loghain circled each other slowly, taking measure.  Then Loghain roared and attacked.

            Either he had not yet lost any speed to age, or he had once been inhumanly quick, for Alistair barely threw his shield up between them in time.  He tried to throw Loghain back to make space for a counterattack, but the teyrn was strong as well.  Over and over they clashed to little avail, pushing each other back and forth across the emptied floor, shields dented from the force of their collisions.  They settled for small cuts to limbs and temporary gains of ground, until –

            Until Alistair saw Loghain getting winded.  That was the advantage Alistair had over him:  months of fighting and walking versus months of sitting uneasy on the throne.  Stamina.  Gradually, Alistair began to press harder, trying to wear Loghain down rather than looking for the straight kill.  It was slow, grinding work, and his own lungs were burning by the time he started to notice the slump coming into the teyrn’s posture, the slight dropping of his arms.

            Then it was possible to hurt him.  Then the blows came faster, more sword now than shield; more and more of them landed, found their way through the armor, beckoned forth blood.

            His eyes gave up the fight before his arms did.  “I underestimated you,” he murmured.  “You are worthy to be Maric’s son.”  A cough, thick perhaps with blood.  “I loved that man.”

            “I never knew him,” Alistair snarled.  “I loved Duncan.” 

            Everything seemed to slow to a crawl.  Loghain’s sword and shield were already lowered when Alistair’s blade found the gap beneath his breastplate.  He rammed the weapon upward with all of his strength, not relenting until he saw the dimming of his enemy’s eyes.  A few yanks before it would come free of the wound; then as he turned, time gradually caught up with him again.  Anora was turned away, one hand decorously raised to her damp face, turned toward a comforting Philoméne.

            Eamon, however, stepped forward beaming.  “It is decided!  Alistair Theirin shall be King of Ferelden!”

            The rush of battle had not subsided enough for Alistair to be that quiescent.  “No!” he roared.  “We have _not_ decided that!”

            Anora, startled out of her trauma, responded quickly.  “He abdicates!  You heard him.”

            Naturally this sparked a new wave of disagreement among the nobles, and that gave Alistair time to realize that he was no longer in battle, and that he had openly defied Arl Eamon, and _loudly_ at that.  And… that Anora was looking to Philoméne for the answer, just as he was.  Those hours of talking – this was what they were for.  For Anora to be standing with them and not against them.

            Eamon raised his hands to quiet the crowd, and then turned toward Philoméne himself, his look one of resignation.  “Clearly a dispute remains,” he sighed.  “Perhaps, Gray Warden, you will tell us to whom you would give the crown.”

            She looked for a moment at Anora, and then at Alistair, and he could hear his blood pounding in his ears.

            “Anora is already Queen.  Let her remain so.”

            Anora smiled a little and nodded, and all around them were noises of assent.  She had always been popular, and more of a ruler, honestly, than Cailan had been. 

            “So be it,” Eamon said, with only enough defeat in his voice for Alistair to hear.

            _Free._

            “Then you must renounce all claim to the throne,” Anora said, “for yourself and your heirs.  This must not become a matter for contention again.”

            “I renounce it!”  Too eager?  He didn’t care any more.  He was _free._   He wheeled toward Philoméne, vaguely aware that he was already beaming in relief as she smiled for him, and inclined her head ever so slightly, as if to say _I told you so._

            He fairly tackled her, caught her up into his arms, swirled her in the air.  There was no reason left in the world that he couldn’t.

            “That being settled,” he panted into her ear, “you _will_ marry me, won’t you?  One day, when you’re not too busy with something else?”

            She lifted her arms around his neck and kissed him once before she answered, laughing.  “Whenever that day is, I suppose I will, yes.”

 


	27. Have Some Courtesy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morrigan knows what she has to do next. There are so many reasons she would rather not.

            Morrigan had decided that Riordan was an idiot.

            Perhaps, true enough, he was not to blame for the decision that _one_ Gray Warden should be sent to investigate the loss of many.  (So it might be that Wardens on the whole were stupid, and that it was Alistair, not Philoméne, who should be taken as the rule.  That was disheartening.)  But then, of his own lack of skill he’d been captured and imprisoned, to be rescued by Ferelden’s two green Wardens only recently, perhaps too late to be of any use to either Ferelden or his own band in Orlais.

            Out of respect for Philoméne, she tried at first not to berate him openly.  She also tried not to roll her eyes and complain about the way that Alistair and Philoméne had fallen to giggling and fawning all over each other on the journey to Redcliffe, where Riordan seemed to think the darkspawn horde was going to strike.

            They were so happy together, especially now that the specter of possible kingship was gone.  (A relief to all of Ferelden, Morrigan had said, and they’d been so joyous that they had let it slide.)  Morrigan was no believer in _love_ ; she had grown up without any notion of such a thing being real, and even now there was something about it that worried her on Philoméne’s behalf, thinking it was more likely than not to end in tears.  Or blood.  Still, there was something about their bright eyes and care and cuddling that made Morrigan feel… wistful.

            And then she would look at Riordan, and contemplate how much older and more tainted he was than her companions.  Flemeth had had a keen sense of Philoméne’s talent and had known of Alistair’s bloodline; she had also made references to their _freshness_ as a reason for helping them.  _Should both the need and the opportunity arise, that will matter_ , she had said.

            Morrigan did not like to remember such things.  She spent the days of walking idly teasing Sten with mutually threatening flirtations, and the nights pretending not to hear sounds of passion from Philoméne’s tent.  The particular pitch of their voices in sexual excitement was something she did not really want to know.

            _Should both the need and the opportunity arise._   She told herself the opportunity had not:  she could not prepare for such a complex spell out on the road, after all.  And should they reach Redcliffe and be confronted then and there by the darkspawn, well then, things would have to proceed as they may.  With any luck it would be Riordan who died, and if not him then Alistair – which would grieve Philoméne were it to happen, certainly, but she was strong enough to survive that, especially with a friend to stand by her.

            It was not to be.  Certainly there were darkspawn waiting for them in Redcliffe, but it was obvious immediately that it could not be their main force.  What they fought through to reach the castle was the barest fraction of the amassing army they had seen in the Deep Roads, and the archdemon was not there.  No, indeed:  the archdemon was headed for _Denerim_ , where they had just been.

            Riordan was an idiot.

            As further proof, he made reference to the means of killing an archdemon and then stopped, realizing only then that Alistair and Philoméne did not know this information.  He’d assumed they understood, despite their giddy optimism all the way here.  When he told them the truth, they were left almost breathless.

            “So… whoever kills the archdemon… _dies._ ”  Alistair’s shock, for once, did not strike her as funny.

            “That burden should fall upon me,” Riordan said by way of reassurance.  “I am the oldest.”

            But that was a poor comfort, and both the Wardens knew it.  They looked at each other, tender and afraid and pretending not to be, even though the thought in their eyes was clear.  _If he fails, it will be one of us._

            As they slowly folded in toward each other, Eamon declared that his army would be ready to move by morning, and that in the meantime everyone should rest and make ready for the final assault.  So there it was, the _opportunity._   The whole night indoors where it was safe and roomy, where everything could be prepared in just the right way.

            Curse the luck.

            She skulked away from where her best friend and the man she (bewilderingly) loved huddled together, contemplating the impossible problem they faced.

            She had an answer:  she could save them both, save the Theirin bloodline, and perform a miracle the likes of which had never been seen on Thedas, one that might change the course of the world.

            And in return, they would hate her forever.  It wasn’t fair.

            She could hear the old woman cackling in her head.  _What fool ever told you the world was_ fair _, girl?  But you wanted to see it, and here it is, in all its painful glory.  What are you going to do now?  Wither like a delicate flower, or stand up and be the Witch of the Wilds?_

            Philoméne had stood with her when she’d learned her “mother” intended to possess her like a demon.  She’d faced Flemeth in her stead to protect her.  She was the only person Morrigan would ever have considered calling a friend.  She owed the elf this, even if that meant losing the friendship.

            Instead of her own room, she went to Philoméne’s and waited.  The wait was long, time enough to nearly reconsider and then reform her determination several times over.  On top of the prospect of hurting Philoméne, there was the considerable deterrent of exactly _what_ hurtful thing she would have to do.  With _Alistair,_ of all people.  Had they but known the ritual, they might have made some other, more attractive Warden for her to bed.  Sten, perhaps.  Even Zevran would have been preferable.

            Well, perhaps _unattractive_ was not the right word for Alistair, as he was well enough proportioned and his features were not misshapen.  But his personality was quite abhorrent, and his attachment to Philoméne was going to be a problem for all three of them.

            At last Philoméne opened the door – alone, thankfully – and startled a little to see that someone was already there.

            “’Tis only I,” she said, looking into the fireplace, not yet quite ready to turn and face the Warden.  But it was time to put aside such sentimental foolishness.  _You are saving her.  And Alistair, and perhaps a god.  Be ruthless.  Make her see._   With a deep breath, she turned to regard the elf, who looked pale and weary and not at all in a good frame of mind to receive another rude shock.

            _You are saving her._

            “I know what Riordan told you,” she said.  “What if I told you that no Gray Warden had to die?”

            “Then I would long to believe you.  But I don’t see how it’s possible, if what he said is true.”

            Morrigan tried to smile, approached Philoméne and touched her hand lightly.  “Did you know that it was possible for me to use my blood to save you from Cullen, without taking the taint into myself?”  She led her friend to the bed to sit down.  “Flemeth trained me in old magics, long forgotten by most of the world.  There is one….”  She trailed off for a moment, contemplating how to say it.  “The soul of the archdemon will leap from its body to another like lightning.  In normal circumstances, it would go to the Warden slaying it, as the nearest available host.  But like lightning, it can be _drawn._   Should there be a child conceived by a Warden, so near the time of battle, with the proper spells performed… then the soul could be drawn to the child.  Drawn, and reborn untainted.”

            Philoméne frowned in thought.  “But I don’t think I can – ”

            “You cannot.  But I can.”  She paused, then forced out the difficult part.  “With Alistair.”

            Philoméne fairly leapt to her feet and began pacing.  “You cannot be serious.  You cannot mean to suggest that you should sleep with Alistair.”

            “Does it seem to you the sort of thing that I would suggest idly?”

            “No.”  Philoméne stopped moving, but crossed her arms.  “I suppose I would have no call to be jealous, would I?  There is no love lost between you.  So – then would it even be possible?”

            Morrigan smirked.  “Ah, yes, you have had no one but each other, so you do not know.  It is quite possible to perform the act without love, I assure you.  And for my part, I can promise that I will love Alistair no more after than I have before.  In fact, I intend to leave you as soon as the archdemon is defeated, and neither of you will see me again.”

            “What?”  This pleased the elf little better.  “We have been friends.”

            “We have, and for that I… I thank you.  But this is a necessary cost of what I must do.  It will be best for all of us that it be so.”  She leaned forward, urgency creeping into her voice.  “Archdemons are not born.  They are made, like the darkspawn.  If we could actually free one from its taint, and make an Old God of it again – do you not see how _precious_ a chance that is?”

            Philoméne seemed to consider her words carefully.  She could see the elf weighing the theory in her mind.  Yes.  Perhaps she would agree on principle, and there would be no need for crueler persuasions.  It would be a small blessing, at least, not to have to part on bitter terms.

            “If you succeeded – then yes.  It would be a wonder.  It would change the world.”  She shook her head.  “How would you _raise_ such a child?”

            “With great care and honor,” Morrigan answered, and it was no less than the truth.  “Not among men:  that is not where I am at my best, to be honest, and there would be too many opportunities to suffer and grow bitter.  But I would teach it to respect what is best in other living beings.  To be like you,” she added, her eyes slightly lowered.

            “You flatter me.  And I cannot deny being as curious as you are.”  Philoméne stood in quiet thought for another moment; but then the light faded, and the slender hope of easy agreement passed. “But it is a terrible risk, Morrigan.  Failure would make you the mother of a new Blight.”

            “But the only other option is for one of you to die.  You or Alistair.  Do you want to have come all this way with him only to lose him now?”

            Philoméne’s knees buckled, and she fell to sitting beside Morrigan, looking at her with wide, wounded eyes.  The witch stamped down her own regrets at seeing that look on her only friend and knowing she had caused it.  _There.  Now drive in the knife like the heartless bitch you’re supposed to be._   “And what if it should be you, Philoméne?  How do you think Alistair will feel?  Do you think he can even _survive_ without you?”

            Now she was choking back tears.  Morrigan hated having to reduce her to such weakness.  Philoméne raised a palm to wipe her eyes, rubbing them hard in an effort to bring herself under control.  “You are so _cold_ , Morrigan.”

            “Cold, am I?  I am trying to save your life.  Both of your lives!  You need not end in Denerim – but if you do not accept my offer, you will, one way or the other.  Let me save you, and you can go on together, just the way I know you want.”

            Another moment of thoughtful silence.  “Why not Riordan?”

            “He is too old, and he has been tainted for too long.  I could not guarantee success.”

            “But you can if it is Alistair.”

            “Yes, I can.”

            “Why didn’t you go directly to him?”

            Morrigan laughed, and wished it could be because something was funny.  “You are not serious.  Do you think he would agree to this without your leave?  Or to _anything_ that I was the one to suggest, for that matter?  No, you are the only one who will be able to persuade him.  You always are, in the end.”

            Philoméne was staring off into the fire, no longer looking at her directly, her eyes gone distant and empty.  “What am I going to say to him?  ‘Alistair, since you and Morrigan have always hated each other, would you mind very much _sleeping_ with her instead of me on what might be our last night ever in a bed?’”

            “He is free to return to your bed as soon as I am done with him.”  Philoméne winced at that answer, and Morrigan realized that it might have struck her as unkind.  “You will convince him.  Perhaps you will tell him that your future together is at stake, since that is true.  But you must do it, Philoméne.  There is no better course.”

            A heavy, slow sigh.  “You are right.  I’ll… I’ll think of something.”

            “No doubt.”  She patted Philoméne’s knee, an ineffectual gesture of comfort, before standing.  “Then I shall go and prepare.  Send him to me in my own quarters.”  This was for the best.  It _was_ , she insisted to herself, even if it felt at the moment like betraying her friend in exchange for serving, one last time, as Flemeth’s tool.  She chanted it to herself repeatedly as she left Philoméne sitting on the bed behind her, still staring into the fire, lost in her own thoughts, and lost to Morrigan.

 


	28. Deals with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morrigan gets herself and Alistair through a mutually unwanted sexual encounter with the power of mind games. (sex chapter)

He caught one last glimpse of her eyes as the door closed between them, and it made everything worse.  Hurt, of course.  And desperate, in a way he had never seen in her before.  She had to be desperate to have asked him for this.  He still wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with it, but now he’d promised to try, and he was locked in with Morrigan.

He didn’t turn around to face her right away.  He was still staring at the door as he asked, “This is going to be blood magic, isn’t it?”

Morrigan answered with her usual lack of concern.  “Something like.  Not exactly.  Nothing that need upset your delicate Templar sensibilities.”

Oh, no, of course not.  There was no reason that cheating on the woman he loved with a maleficar as part of some dark ritual should upset his delicate Templar sensibilities.  Certainly not when his love had actually _requested_ it and was waiting in the next room.  Within _earshot_ , for all he knew.  Maker’s breath.

He couldn’t wrap his head around it.  Despite how she herself had chafed under the Tower’s stringent rules, Philoméne had always stood firm against dark magic before:  she had even turned over her oldest friend to the Circle for it, even though it had pained her to do it.  And now she was suddenly willing to hand him over to this awful woman, just to save her own life?

No, of course not.  He’d been an idiot to think it.  It was to save _his_ life.  Morrigan had convinced her that if they did this, _he_ wouldn’t die fighting the archdemon.  The darkness had finally found her asking price, and it was him.

He ran his fingertips along the grooves in the wood in front of him.  Sorrow and guilt were doing nothing to get him into the proper state for what he was being asked to do.

Now that special note of disdain was in Morrigan’s voice.  “You do realize that you’re not here just to admire the door?”

He managed to turn his head, at least.  “Why are you doing this?”

“To save you, Philoméne, and all of Ferelden is not quite enough reason?”

“Oh, no, it is, because you’ve always been magnanimous like that.  Wait, that wasn’t the word I wanted, was it?  I was supposed to say _venomous._ ”

A sharp exhale.  “Fine, then.  Perhaps I get something out of it myself.  Why should I not?”

His throat was tightening.  “Did you just want one last chance to hurt us?  Is that it?”

“If all I wanted was to see you hurt, I could just let one of you die,” she countered.  “Think how wretched you would be then.  But I like _her_ well enough not to have that as my motive.  We have always had… something of an understanding, she and I.  Perhaps we are more similar than you like to imagine.”  She pressed in against his back, and he closed his eyes.  “Hmm, yes.  Perhaps you should try imagining it, in fact.  That might help.”

“Right,” he whispered.  “I’ll imagine she’s you, shall I?  That’ll stiffen me right up.”

“Idiot,” she breathed into his ear, running her hands across his shoulders.  “Imagine I am she.”

He willed himself to the effort with a deep, long sigh.  “I’ll try that, but you’ll have to stop talking.”  Her hands were already reaching around to his chest, opening his shirt.  He leaned his head against the door and tried to focus on the sensation rather than its source.  Gradually he let himself be soothed by the warm hands moving across his skin, even though their touch was not the soft, sweet one he was used to but something more primal, more demanding.

But when the hands pulled his pants down and cupped his buttocks, his eyes snapped open.  _Morrigan.  Me.  Naked._   He spun around, and it was all he could do not to drive an elbow into her face by instinct.  Or run screaming.  Or more likely, tangle himself up and fall to the floor, since he hadn’t stepped clear of the pants yet.  He did so, for the sake of his dignity, before resuming his panicked glare to –

She was already naked, and undeniably voluptuous.  Her slinky robes had not lied about her shape, not that they really could have.  For a few seconds, the vision was so striking that he almost forgot he hated her:  but then it registered in her face that his look was not purely one of horror, and her mouth twisted into a cruel sneer.

He fell back against the door, stammering.  “I. I can’t do this.”  But the perversity of the situation had apparently grown more appealing to his body than to his head, and he could feel the impulses of the two careening apart.  “Stay away from me.”

She scowled and raised her hands to her hips, which only served to lift her breasts slightly.  “Look, do you think this is what _I_ wanted?  Why do you think I have waited until now to suggest it?  It is not amusing to throw oneself at an unreceptive man, Alistair.”

“No,” he muttered, and slumped under the extra layer of guilt.  “I suppose not.”

She regarded him thoughtfully.  “Hmm.  And yet you seemed more receptive when you were getting angry.  Or frightened, or whatever you were for that moment when you weren’t wallowing in self-pity over having to make love to a woman.”

“Not a woman,” he snarled.  “ _You._ ”

But now she laughed.  “There, you see?  Now that your blood is pumping…” she stepped toward him and stroked her fingers along his shamefully responsive flesh.  “Now, the trick is to keep you just unhappy enough, in just the right fashion.  Happily, since this is not a unique response, I know what might work.”

“Men are unhappy when they’re with you?  Imagine that.”

She pretended to ignore him.  “What do you suppose she intends to do with her night?  Will she go and talk to Zevran?”  She smiled easily as he stood frozen.  “An eye for an eye?  You know how happy he would be to oblige if she invited him.”

Yes, he knew.  He’d thought about it more than once, especially on nights when he had seen them standing near each other by the fire.  Both elves… and both so sodded _pretty._   He could conjure the scene in his head in disconcerting detail.  Disconcerting, jealousy-inducing… alluring detail.  Their beautiful, lithe bodies intertwined in his imagination, and she threw her head back with that little whimper he adored, and Alistair didn’t know whether to cry or –

“That’s it,” Morrigan grinned, rubbing at him and surveying the result with smug satisfaction.  “Onto the bed, and we can be about this.”

He allowed himself to be led into place, pushed down onto the sheets.  By the time it crossed his mind that Philoméne had never really shown interest in Zevran and that he was tying on his own snare, Morrigan was straddling him, full breasts swaying as she lowered herself into position.  He dug his fingers into the bed beneath him.

She cocked her head playfully.  “No?  Is that game losing its appeal already?  Hmm.  There was that other fellow, what was his name?  Cullen.”

He sat up in a violent burst of movement, grabbing her by the shoulders.  “No.  Not as you value your life.”

  “Ssh, ssh.”  She slid a hand down his chest, seeking to calm his response down to the level she wanted.  “We will not speak of that.  But clearly he was obsessed with your little flower long before that, given that fine display he put on in the Tower.  And he looked not unlike you, did you notice that?  She must have a favorite type.  What did the two of you used to call it?  A pet Templar.”

_Not Templars.  Do not bring in the Templars._   But of course that meant she must.  It was too large and obvious a shadow to leave alone, one that had haunted many sterner Templars than himself, one that had invoked many guilty whispers among Templars in training for time untold.  One that had turned men into monsters, and not only Cullen.  He fell back, shuddering.

“To be a young, robust man bound into chastity and then made the keeper of succulent, naïve apprentices!  That must be very difficult, mustn’t it, Alistair?  I do wonder how long he would have held out if Philoméne had actually been there.  If Jowan had been there, for that matter, still with his blood mages, knowing the boy’s weakness more precisely.  I wonder what sort of deal they might have struck.”

With a slight rocking of her hips she brought him inside her, and he groaned at how the sensation and the thought augmented each other, and closed his eyes against her, willing her not to be there.

Of course that didn’t help at all, because she was still riding him, and still _talking_.  “It only takes the smallest nudge to the mind to move it in a direction it already wished to go.  Surely it wouldn’t have taken much to persuade such a sweet girl to offer herself to a strong young man.”  She leaned in, dropping her voice.  “Perhaps not much more to convince her to take more than one.”

“Stop it,” he whispered, but his pulse was racing, and keeping his grip in the mattress was all that saved him from grabbing her hips to make her move faster. 

“Cullen would not have been her only admirer, I am sure.  A weakness for elves is so common, after all, and her with those exotic Dalish-inspired marks.  Come to think of it…” she reared back to ride him at a new angle, clawing at his chest.  “Had Duncan not taken you, would you not have been assigned to that very Tower?  Would Jowan’s bargain have been with you?”

She was in his head.  And Philoméne was in his head, surrounded by lust-maddened Templars, as bare and accepting as any desire demon, a multitude of hands fondling any part of her they could reach.  Pulling her legs open to – he threw up his hands to grip the bedposts behind him, but that was no more help than the mattress had been.  He could see her, could hear her whimpering, with that attitude she had taken to seduce Howe’s guard, half afraid and half eager.  Accepting each one that wanted her into whichever part of her he wanted, sometimes two at a time.  He had never known he could be aroused and enraged at the same time, and he was not glad to find it out, no matter how intense the sensation was.

Morrigan was growing breathless, but she would not abandon her tale.  “I wonder where you would have fallen in the order of proceedings.  Before Cullen, I imagine, so you would not have been last.  I suppose it would have depended on how many of your seniors wanted her, would it not?”

So now he was there, within the scene rather than merely watching it, and she turned her head away from the flesh thrusting into her mouth and looked to him, stared into his soul, as he moved into place to fuck her.

_“Quiet!_ ” he growled, and grabbed Morrigan’s head down toward him, biting her lips to make her stop.  She giggled as he took over the thrusting, clawing into her haunches with a ferocity he hoped would hurt, continuing to bite at her.  She _giggled_ , and it only threw him even further out of control.  He was pounding into her with all his strength, and his teeth sank deep enough into her shoulder to let him taste blood.

She didn’t care:  if anything, it seemed to please her.  She reciprocated, nails digging into his chest.  Her breath was hot against his neck as she moaned and then bit him in turn.  That was when he realized why she wasn’t getting angry at his violence:  instead of hurting, the roughness overwhelmed him with pleasure.  He gasped, almost sobbing, enraptured and hopeless.  The shock that went through his body as he came felt as if he’d been struck by a spell.

Had he?

He wondered, once he had collapsed and the rage had begun to cool.  Only a nudge, she’d said.  Even for a Templar, if his defenses were down, if the thing offered resonated with him.  How could _that_ image have resonated with him?  Was it – was it his own idea or not?  Nightmare, fantasy, invading force?  What was he to do with it now?

Hate himself for being here.  There, that was as good a start as any.  Hate himself for accepting that this was how it must be, that he was willing to carry this scar to know that Philoméne could survive the archdemon.

The darkness had found _his_ price, and it was her.

Morrigan was sitting peacefully beside him now, smirking.  “The deed is done.  I will have a child with the powers of an Old God…”

Maker’s breath!

“…and you,” she drawled, seeming to savor the words as she said them, “will carry my pretty story in your head forever.”

He was too exhausted and bitter to move; he could only hope that there was enough energy left in his voice to carry the full weight of the sentiment.  “If I ever see you again, I will kill you.”

“Then it is fortunate that you will never see me again.”

Oh, but he would.  When the Blight was over, and he and his beloved were free to choose their priorities (because the Blight _would_ end and they _would_ both survive, yes, he had decided that, and surely that made it official) he’d have his old skills as a Templar to bring to bear.  He would absolutely see her again.

But right now, he wanted to stop seeing her immediately.  He rolled out of the bed, clutching his head as if recovering from too much drink.  Erase her – he must erase her from him somehow.  Find a –

“There is a washbasin there, by the mirror,” Morrigan’s voice said behind him, less commanding than it had been.  “I doubt you should go to her smelling of me.”

That brought one last burst of energy, and he spent it howling, grabbing up the washbasin and throwing it at the witch.  She ducked away, and it clanged against the wall and fell onto the bed, spilling water onto the defiled sheets.  Morrigan looked down at the mess, crossed her arms, and sighed.

“At the risk of inciting further violence,” she said quietly, “I would ask if that is an act befitting the man whom Philoméne loves.”

It would indeed have incited further violence, but that pocket of strength was gone, and he felt almost lifeless.  Instead he only spoke, and even his voice was weary.  “How can you dare to ask that?”

“I dare because I love her as well.  We have saved her life, Alistair.  I must lose her in so doing, but you need not.  Be grateful.”

_Be grateful.  We saved her life.  Be grateful._   That was enough to shut his mouth, to shame him into sullen quiet as he gathered his clothes, threw them on, and fled to his own quarters to clean up in private.  It was enough to let him hurry through washing himself.  But when he saw himself in the mirror and caught sight of the scratches and bite marks Morrigan had left behind, he was struck again by guilt and anger, and now he had no place for them to go.  Throwing a shirt over the evidence and pretending did not make it go away.

            He walked back – no.  He stumbled blindly back to his sweetheart’s room.  Of course she was not asleep:  she was lying over the covers of the bed, still dressed, and he could tell even across the room that she had been crying.

            For a moment he just stood there in the doorway, watching the conflicting impulses wash through his head.  Flee.  Apologize.  Throw himself into her arms.  Yell at her for putting him in such a miserable position.  Tell her he would rather have died for her than have done this.  And at the same time, there was still that awful swimming bit that wanted to see her ravished by half a dozen Templars at once, because that would be so beautiful, or because that would _show her_.

            He begged the image to leave his head.  It reminded him far too much of what Cullen had said long ago about the _dark things he did to her in his dreams._   Was it some sort of strange interaction between her and blood magic that made such thoughts inevitable?  Or did she somehow drive every man who loved her mad?  Or did it take a madman to fall in love with her?

            Too late to flee now, at least:  she saw him and sat up, watched him with soft, hurt eyes.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

            Oh, _he_ mustn’t start crying if she wasn’t ready to stop.  If they were both crying, the whole world would fall apart.  “So am I.”

            She shook her head.  “You mustn’t be.  It’s not fair of me to feel hurt.”

            He was sitting beside her before he realized he had moved, and saying the last thing in the world he should say in response.  “I would never have done it if – ”

            “I know that,” she said, and her tenuous hold on herself was slipping.  “That’s part of what hurts me.”

            Of course it was.  He bit his lip and lowered his eyes, staring at her hands.  For a few long moments they sat in heavy silence, the arrangement with Morrigan hanging like a dark curtain between them.

            “I… was it awful?” she asked.  “Did you – ”

            “Don’t.”  He took her slender hands in his, and continued to keep his focus there.  “Don’t ask me.  This conversation cannot go anywhere good, and you know that.  Good or bad, you do not want to know, and I do not want to tell you.”  He listened to her take one sobbing breath, waiting to make sure she understood.  “We can’t afford to spend tonight fighting and crying and feeling sorry for ourselves.  If we go into battle so exhausted that we’re killed by a hurlock, then it’s all been for nothing.”

            She squeezed his hands lethargically.  “You’re right.  What do you suggest we do?”

            He considered, fought his own tears back again.  “I still love you.  I still want _us_ to mean something when this is over.  I want to try, when we have the luxury of trying.  If that’s what you want, all you have to do is let me stay.  If you’re not sure, then tell me now.  I’ll go and sleep in the room Eamon gave me, and we’ll… sort the rest out when we’re not in fear for our lives.”

            Her answer was low and timid.  “If you stay, may I hold you?”

            There, the sob he’d been resisting.  “Oh, Maker, please.”  Before he could take another breath he was clinging to her for dear life, and her arms were around him, hands running desperately up and down his back.

 


	29. The Cost of Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first farewells, and an archdemon.

            _Would you do something terrible if you knew it would keep us together?_

            The city was overrun, and they were mobbed by darkspawn as soon as they reached the market square.  The whole party spread out, two or three per mob, and quickly there was blood and chaos everywhere.  Given their habit of dividing up, Alistair had seldom seen some of his own group in battle; now, Philoméne’s dog revealed itself as a prince among mabari, Sten was an unholy terror, and even Oghren proved that Philoméne had not been wrong to bring him.

            Even so, it was only the beginning.  Riordan suggested splitting into smaller teams, so that some could lead the troops left behind to protect their flank.  Philoméne agreed, and her eyes slowly swept over all of them, one by one.  Alistair’s breath caught in his throat as her gaze paused on him.

            _If it meant that we would both live?_

            “Alistair,” she said, casting her eyes down; and she added, as if she felt she had to justify it, “All the Wardens we have must go forward.”  She paused for a moment, frowning in thought.  “Wynne.”

            “And me,” said Zevran, stepping toward her.

            “I did not call for volunteers, Zev.”

            “You would leave the assassin to mount the defense?  At any rate, I have followed the two of you much too far to be left behind now.  For you I will go into the Black City itself if I must.”

            Her eyes clouded, but the corners of her lips quirked upward.  “Now they will think I chose you for the speech.”

            Zevran grinned in satisfaction.  “But you and I know it is because I am the best of them, and also your favorite, yes?  Let them keep their dignity by pretending.”

            She gave him a quick hug, and then moved among the other members of their party, exchanging what might be farewells.  When she reached Morrigan, they both faltered, new tensions between them as well as the most definite of the goodbyes:  and yet they still embraced, the black witch and the white, like estranged sisters.

            And then Philoméne came back to Alistair, and took his hand, eyes full of uncertainty.  “Here we go.  I wish I knew which gods I should be praying to.”

            He squeezed her hand.  “That’s if we haven’t blown our chances on praying permanently.”  No, hardly the time for that.  “We can do this, Philoméne.  You’re practically invincible.”

            She closed her eyes.  “Andraste, I suppose.  She was friend to both the Maker and the elves, and she let us have her ashes.”  Her head bowed, and she swayed a little closer to him.  “I love you, Alistair.”

            Rather than allow himself to choke, he pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head.  “And I love you.  Always.”

            Between the gate and the next wave of enemies there were a few moments of quiet.  Zevran walked beside him, curling and uncurling his fingers to warm them up.  “Not much of a moment with Leliana, there,” he said to the assassin.  “Feeling that confident?”

            “Ah, that.”  Zevran shrugged.  “That, I fear, has run its course, as these things do.  I blame you Wardens, honestly.  I am beginning to have goals for my life, and Leliana’s and mine do not agree.”

            Alistair grinned a little.  “You have goals?  Like what?”

            But there was no more time for that.  The darkspawn were upon them, and from then on there was no respite from them.  They could not pause to speak even when they saw the archdemon itself wheeling in the air above them, and some much smaller creature falling –

            Maker’s breath, Riordan.

            _Please, Alistair.  I see no other way I could bear._

            Now, indeed, there was no other way but to hope that Morrigan had been honest.

            By the time they’d won their way up the tower to face the great dragon themselves, their armor was thoroughly coated with blood.  Zevran must be miserable – such an odd thing for an assassin to be offended by, too much blood.  The two mages were cleaner, but guzzling potions to keep up their magical reserves, and a virtual sea of fresh darkspawn awaited them.  Alistair allowed himself a sigh before he ran into battle ahead of the others, shield raised yet again.  Over all the din of metal and shouting he barely heard the horn calling forth the armies they had left behind them, the help won by all the months of travel and effort and Philoméne’s eerie powers of persuasion.

            As they arrived, everything dissolved into chaos.  The archdemon repeatedly heaved itself into the air, the wind of its wings making all near it stumble as it flew – but unevenly, and it would land not far away.  And then one of Philoméne’s storms would enshroud it, bright lightning and then dark fog and the violet bolts of raw arcane power.  When both faded, Alistair would throw himself at the monstrosity, and when it was cut and he was charred, it would fly again, to land elsewhere and face another storm as Wynne repaired him.  Meanwhile Zevran leapt and spun all around them at frantic speed, trying to defend all three of them wherever their allies were not.

            By the end, it was less a matter of skill than of endurance.  It was hard to find ground to stand on that wasn’t littered with bodies, and even where there was still sure footing he had to ignore the screaming of his muscles, moving them by force of will alone, by lying to them.  _Just one more.  Almost done now._   _Look, I think it’s bleeding a little more.  One more good hit and it’ll stop getting up._

            When it became true, all he could do was stand there gaping, afraid that he was imagining it because he was delirious.  In the time it took for him to believe that it was real, Philoméne had snatched up a sword from somewhere – she had barely ever _held_ a sword before – and went running toward the archdemon’s flailing head.

            “ _No!_ ” he screamed, but he had only moved two steps toward her when her blade pierced the scales, and the wound filled with light.

            Everything froze in front of him:  there was no sound but the blood pounding in his ears, and the images he saw moved impossibly slowly, Philoméne a shadow ringed by the bright flash of demon and dragon coming apart.  He was helpless to stop it, and yet the moment was still and calm instead of panicked, and one clear thought floated through his head.

            _This is the moment when you would have lost her._

            The assumption carried in the phrasing did not dawn on him until he had been thrown back by the blast and was clamoring on all fours, fumbling for his dropped sword, desperate to find it and get back on his feet before –

            Before nothing.  They were fleeing.  The battle was won.

            He rose up onto his knees and scanned the bloody tower for recognizable figures.  The First Enchanter was far off to his left, gathering the remaining mages:  healing them and then sending them forth to heal the rest of the wounded, Alistair supposed, but that was hardly the information he was seeking.  Zevran caught his eye next, an improvement.  The assassin noticed him and started to approach, then staggered and halted, clutching a wound in his side.

            “Zevran?” Alistair called, alarmed.

            The elf shook his head, waving him off feebly as he called back.  “Not important.  Find her.”  By now a mage had spotted Zevran as well, so Alistair allowed himself to keep turning his gaze.

            She had fallen far to his right, flat on her back, her yellow Tevinter robe making her stand out from the dark bloodstains on the stones.  She _was_ alive:  her knees were slowly bending upward.  Thank the M- Morrigan.  Awkward.  It meant that Morrigan was in fact pregnant with _his_ child, which had even odds of being the world’s most powerful abomination.  And that when the Wardens finally stirred themselves to communicate with Ferelden again, they would be eager to know how a little elf mage had destroyed an archdemon without dying.

            And that he had Philoméne.  That was the important part.

            He rose to his feet and stumbled about halfway to her before his legs refused to carry him any further.  Now that the rush of battle was gone, his body was turning into one enormous ache.  The rest of the way he had to crawl.  She turned her head toward the pathetic clanging of his knees against the ground, and smiled a little, reaching for his hand.

            “Hello.  Alistair.”  Her breaths were shallow.

            He squeezed her fingers in his.  “You were right, my love.  It worked.  Are you hurt?”

            “Other arm’s broken.  Maybe some ribs.”  She gave him another faint smile.  “We won, right?”

            “We won.”

            He waited beside her for the healers, both a necessity and a joy.

           

 


	30. Breathless with Adoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair confesses his thoughts to Zevran; then he and Philomene celebrate their victory. (sex chapter)

            Healing was the easy part.  Anora wanted parties and parades in honor of the Heroes of Ferelden and the end of the Blight – and, of course, the restored security of her own position as Queen, but Alistair could hardly begrudge her that, being so happy not to be pressed into service as King.  She had also wanted a hero’s memorial in honor of her father Loghain, but that had been a much harder sell to Denerim’s elite, and in the end she gave that up for the time being.  Her only company at her father’s cremation were some prominent figures from the local Chantry and Philoméne, living saint of forgiveness.  And, peculiarly, Arl Eamon.

            “He was a great man once,” he explained to Alistair.  “It will be a shame if history forgets the good that he did earlier in his life.”  He had also grown resigned and philosophical about Alistair’s refusal of the throne: “I think there were times when your father would have made the same choice, if he could have.  You and your lady have done incredible things for Ferelden without ruling it, and I am sure you will continue.”  He patted Alistair’s hand, a warmth of gesture they hadn’t shared since Connor was born.  “I hope that you will also be happy.”

            Alistair hoped so too.  Of course he was happy not to be King, and ecstatic that he and Philoméne had both lived to see the Blight stopped, along with the rest of their party.  Unfortunately, he thought he might also be _relieved_ that there had not yet been the time and privacy for them to really celebrate together.  There were… issues… left unresolved in his head, pictures and sensations he wanted to be gone that weren’t.

            She stepped out of her chambers with Leliana behind her, smiling.  The bard had woven tiny flowers into Philoméne’s hair, the same sweet violet color as the gown she was wearing.  She looked and smelled lovely, and it did nothing to help Alistair keep his thoughts chaste.  He took hold of her wrist to pull her close, and whispered his approval into her ear.  “Maker’s breath.  I can hardly wait to be alone with you.”

            Her grin widened and took on a hint of mischief.  “Fine.  Off with the armor, then.”

            That made him blush – _she_ could still do that to him.  “No, no!  Anora would have me killed if we spoiled her party by waylaying the guest of honor.  Don’t think she hasn’t considered it anyway.”

            “Is she to be your new Morrigan?”

            It was a joke, he knew, and just about the complaining.  It was not intended to set off so many alarms in his head.  She saw his discomfort and shook her head and sighed, then laid her hand over his.  “Never mind, then.  Kindly escort me down into the chaos.”

            That was something of an exaggeration, at least at first:  Anora did not allow her meeting hall to be overrun by commoners.  The actual declaration that Philoméne was Hero of Ferelden and friend of the Queen took place in front of a well-behaved assortment of nobles and representatives of important organizations.  And since they had all known as much already, the only ripple of surprise came when Anora announced that the Wardens of Ferelden, with Philoméne as their current representative, would be given rule of Howe’s estate, Amaranthine.

            “That’s never – I mean, that’s never _happened_ before,” Alistair said to Philoméne when events had shifted from formalities to mingling.  “Gray Wardens don’t get involved in politics.  That’s the policy.  What I was taught, anyway.”

            “We’ve done almost nothing _but_ meddle in politics!” she countered.  “We’ve decided the rulers of both Ferelden and Orzammar.  An Arling is a reasonable step _down_ , I think, and it will give us a place to start rebuilding the order.”

            It would also give them a set of burdens he’d wanted them free of, though on a smaller scale.  And dominion over lots of humans who would need convincing that an elf could be an Arlessa.  And there would still be the matter of Orlesian Wardens coming and asking about Philoméne’s survival, about the spell –

            The spell, the damned spell.  The sudden unbidden image of her pressed between him and some other man, already whining loudly under their combined attention, and his own roughness.  He fell back from her a step, and thanked the Maker silently when she ignored it, taking it as a subliminal signal to start moving amongst this inner ring of guests before she braved the crowds waiting for a glimpse of her outside.

            Alistair avoided the nobles in favor of checking in with his former companions.  None seemed to intend to stay together, and though amiable they showed little regret for the loss.  It had been Philoméne and their task holding them together.  Morrigan was already gone, of course, and better so; Wynne and Oghren planned to remain in Denerim – with unrelated plans, Alistair assumed, although the two had seemed to bond once over similar tastes in ale; Sten was returning to his people, and showed a predictable lack of wistfulness about leaving Ferelden; Leliana was excited about going back to the Urn of Sacred Ashes, in the hopes that she could help make the site safe for pilgrimages.  Although no particular one of them had been central to Alistair, collectively they’d been his band, his replacement for the Wardens, and it was hard to imagine all of them gone from his life.

            And then there was Zevran.  He would be far and away the hardest one to lose, because they actually had been close.  For that reason, Alistair sought him out last:  that way, if he got ridiculously overwrought over it, he could flee the scene without missing anyone.

            Zevran was predictably being a suave nuisance:  he’d attracted several nubile young heirs apparent of both genders, and they swarmed around him as he swirled the wine in his goblet and chatted merrily with them.  When he saw Alistair approaching, however, he broke from his admirers to join his friend.  “Alistair!  How is it that no one has brought you any wine?  Your Queen has offered some reasonably good vintages.  I think perhaps you would like the Seleny White – ”

            “Wait, Zev.  I…” he was the last one to say goodbye to, and actually facing him now brought that home, and Alistair struggled to find the words.  “I… don’t know how to thank you.  For everything.  And….”

            The little flirtatious smirk that usually meant he’d found a way to twist the words toward his favorite subject.  “Don’t you?”  But he let Alistair off easy.  “No matter, since you will not be rid of me for some time yet.  Our Warden has already agreed to let me accompany you both on your new errands.  You are going to try to collect more Wardens, are you not?”

            “Yes.  Are you – are you going to try – ”

            “No, no, no.  I have ingested many things, but I draw the line at darkspawn blood.  Even I have my standards, my friend.  But I imagine I can be of use in other ways, and it would please me to do so.”

            Alistair’s first response was relief; but the second was a surprising maelstrom of feelings and ideas that left him full of sudden urgency.  “I’m glad to hear it.  Actually, can I speak with you about something?”

            “Of course!  Let us get you a drink, and then we can – ”

            Alistair touched the elf’s shoulder.  “Privately.  Please.”

            Zevran studied his eyes for a moment, then nodded.  “Very well.  Although you may be costing me several opportunities.”

            Alistair led the way up the stairs and into a private library.  Once they were both inside, he closed the door and gave a loud, deep sigh.  “Maker, Zev, I don’t know how to ask you this.”

            Zevran strolled across the room to lean casually against a bookcase, relaxed and in good humor.  “Do we still have secrets between us?  Are you afraid of embarrassing me?  I do have such delicate sensibilities.”

            “Embarrassing _you._   Sure, that was my worry.”  If he didn’t want to have to say it twice, he’d have to stop mumbling.  “What I’m asking is… I mean.  I need – no.  Well, yes.  I need you to… join me and Philoméne.  The next time we, ah.”

            Zevran raised his eyebrows.  “ _Join_ you?  Does that mean what it sounds like it should mean?  No, surely you are joking with me.”

            “No, I’m serious.”

            Arriving with the belief in Zevran’s face was bewilderment, and he raised a hand to his lips and was silent for a time, his breath quickening slightly.  At last he asked, “And what does our Warden say about this idea?”

            …Oh.  Now that he asked, Alistair felt stupid.  “We haven’t discussed it.”

            The look Zevran was giving him became an odd mixture of longing and horror, and again he was silent for a moment before he moved his fingers from his mouth, flexing them slowly, and spoke.  “In that case, I cannot agree.”

            Of course not, and yet Alistair heard himself counter with, “But you could help me talk to her about it.”

            “That is not how it works.”  Zevran shook his head, irritated now, following his own train of thought.  “It _can_ be, but – listen.  I… would be lying if I said this was not something I have wanted.  Indeed it would be difficult to think of something I wanted more.”  A glimmer of greater intensity in his eyes, quickly clamped down.  “But not like this, not for the two of you.  She could decide we were pressuring her, and resent us both.  I assume you do not want this to end with all three of us miserable?”

            “No.”  Alistair leaned heavily against the desk and ran his hands through his hair.  “Then I don’t know what to do.”

            “What makes this so urgent?  How did you decide to ask me this just now?”

            “Because you’d know how to _handle_ it.  You’ve done practically everything, and I know you care enough about her to make it good for her, and you would know how to coordinate more than two people, and you could keep me from _hurting_ her, and – ”

            Zevran had moved from his bookcase to grab Alistair by the sides of his face.  “Alistair.  You’re babbling.  Take a breath and then tell me where all of this is coming from.”

            He did his best to cooperate.  “Morrigan.”

            “Ah.”  Zev nodded and crossed his arms.  “That’s right, you have yet to tell me this story.  Had I known it was causing you this much trouble, I would have insisted on hearing it sooner.  Let us have it now.”

            After a few false starts, it came pouring out of him in a jumble:  the roughness with Morrigan and his response to it, the images in his head, the wish to hear her howling, the terror that his own desires were starting to cause in him.  Zevran listened quietly, giving an occasional prompt or thoughtful nod.  Once Alistair fell silent, Zevran smiled.

            “This is not nearly as bad as you are making it,” he said.  “People imagine a great many things in their fantasies, you know.  They do not all _have_ to be acted out, and they do not have to control you.”

            “But the violence.”

            “While we were fighting the archdemon, did you feel any urges to kiss darkspawn?”  Zevran paused for Alistair to sneer in disgust.  “Then sex and violence have not completely fused in your head, have they?  From what you have told me, you would still have a long way to go before you were a danger to our Warden.  I have seen and heard much worse.”

            “Of course you have, but that doesn’t mean _she_ has!”

            Zevran returned to leaning.  “Did you not tell me she once invited you to pretend she was an apostate?  Perhaps after all she would like you to push a little bit once in a while.  Perhaps it would even make her more demonstrative.  Sometimes that is the way of it.  Ah yes, and the screaming.  That is quite proper for you to want.  Once you have heard it in its proper context, you will not confuse it so easily with noises of suffering.”

            That was a relief.  Well, it began as a relief, at least:  then, as Alistair thought about how pedestrian Zevran had made it sound, it started to feel as if he’d been falling short somehow by failing to discover this for himself yet.  “So I should… what?”

            “Go slowly.  Right now you do not really even know what you want, let alone what she will like.  A small show of strength, a bite or a scratch.  Watch her responses and follow them, just as I have taught you for other things.  It is not really so complicated.”

            Alistair pondered this, nodded.  “And the other thing?” he asked quietly.

            Zevran sighed.  “One thing at a time, Alistair.  As I said, you do not know yet what you want – not everything that is interesting to imagine is something one really desires to _do_.  What you have asked of me… you should make sure that the two of you are happy, that you are stable.  And then you should agree.”  With a ghost of a wistful smile, he touched one finger to Alistair’s jaw.  “And then you may ask me again, if that is still your wish.”  Then he stepped back, and the mask of casual amusement fell back over his face.  “For now, we should return to the festivities before all of my options wander away.”

            Alistair didn’t say thank you:  Zevran didn’t always want that at the best of times, and now he seemed eager to escape the conversation.  So Alistair agreed, and they went back out among the others.  Zevran went not back to his admirers, but outside – most likely to see that Philoméne was safe, since the former Crow remained both untrusting of and unimpressed by Anora’s guards.  Alistair smiled a little to himself.

            The Seleny White was in fact rather good, and he also learned that he could raise the cup to his mouth when he felt an urge to say something potentially stupid to one of the guests.  He was feeling tipsy by the time Philoméne returned and latched onto his arm, giving him a strained and weary smile.  “I can’t take much more of this,” she hissed into his ear.  “Please get me out of here.”

            He needed no other encouragement to escort her up the stairs and to her guest quarters, far and away the nicest any of them had received.  (He still imagined that it was only as a nod to Philoméne that Alistair had a room at all, rather than being tucked away in the basement somewhere on a cot.  Perhaps Anora _was_ their new Morrigan, in that respect.)  He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, watching her begin to relax.  “May I take off my armor, Philoméne?”

            “Please do.”  As he worked on that, she flung herself sideways across the bed and sighed, watching him.  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many people at once who weren’t trying to kill us.  I wasn’t at all sure what to do with myself.  For hours I’ve just been nodding and waving and _smiling_ so much that now my cheeks are sore.”

            “Do you need to spend some time shaking your head and scowling?  Should we go and find Oghren?”

            She chuckled.  “No, I don’t think so.  I might have been hoping you’d find some other way to distract me.”

            “So now I’m to start having _ideas_ , am I?  That’s not a job anyone’s ever given me before.”  Grinning, he moved to the bed and knelt on the mattress beside her.  “But I might have one.”  He bent down to kiss her, softly at first, as one hand stroked at her breasts through the fabric of her gown.  It felt like it had been forever, and before long his kisses were deep and hungry, and he was kneading rather than caressing.  For a moment he startled himself, and drew his face back from hers.

            “If I ever did something that was hurting you – ”

            “What?”  She swatted his shoulder, giggling at the sudden change of mood.  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

            “If I _did._ ”  Without thinking, he took hold of her wrists and pinned her down.  “You would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

            Was there a little bit of a gleam in her eyes?  “Of course I would.”

            He felt more intensely how he was holding her in place, and the expectant gaze they were giving each other, and his breath caught in his throat.  Again the first kiss was gentle, but this time it built into soft, tentative bites to her lower lip.  She whimpered and arched up against him.  Encouraged, he moved on to the side of her neck as he reached around to loosen the fastenings of her dress.  She clutched at the hair on the back of his head, but just as quickly lowered her arms again so that he could undress her.  Time and practice were being kind to him, and he was able to take several nips at her throat and breasts while he disrobed and threw his own clothes aside.

            Following the cue she’d given him, he grabbed and pinned her wrists again as he pressed down against her, and again she sighed and softened to him.  He bit and sucked more ardently at her throat, still in careful stages, unsure of how much she would tolerate.  So far, though, it seemed unnecessary:  she moaned happily, and licked at his ear when she could reach it.  When he started to move his hands, she grabbed them with a whine of protest, and wrapped one leg around his to make him stay.

            “Hmm.”  He smiled but hid it against her skin.  It was too soon to let himself do what she was asking if he really wanted to hear her, but she seemed so pleased with being held down that he did not want to deprive her of that, either.  He pulled both hands above her head and crossed her wrists, pinning them with one hand so that his other was free.  That satisfied her, and allowed him to shift his attention to her breasts.  Her nipples were already hard when his lips and fingers reached them, and teasing them further made her writhe.  For a moment she raised her voice into a louder whine, but she took a deep breath and returned to softer moaning.

            That would not do.  As his teeth raked her nipple he slid his hand down between her legs and started to stroke her there.  He felt her body tense beneath him and her breath grow ragged, but – now there was no question:  he could _feel_ her holding herself back from giving the response he wanted.

            “Philoméne,” he whispered, rubbing just a little more insistently.  “No one is going to hear you but me.  Let go.”

            She squirmed and closed her eyes.  “That’s not it,” she rasped.  “I can’t – I might – ”

            “Might what?”  He sucked at her hard, provoking a plaintive whine, and then there was an odd light prickling where his skin touched hers, as if… electrical.  As if her power was threatening to slip out of her control.

            But that was so easy to deal with.  He had to keep himself from laughing at how perfect and obvious they were together.  Instead, he shifted his focus slightly and peeled the nascent spell away from her, acting the gesture out physically with teeth and tongue.  At that she melted, throwing her head back as she surrendered a high wail.  The sound sent a thrill through his whole body, and from that point he had no choice but to be merciless.  He bit at her, worked her inside and out with his fingers, held her in check with both muscle and will until she was soaked and screaming, and he could feel himself almost trembling from how badly he wanted her.

            His hands moved to her hips as he shifted into position.  They slid together easily, and she continued to gift him with a long, singsong whine as he drove into her, wrapping all of her limbs around him.  In reply he peppered her with short, hard kisses rather than one deep one, so as not to interrupt the sound.  He could feel his fingertips digging into her flesh, but if anything that only drove them to even more urgency.  Zevran had been right, as usual:  now that Alistair was here, it seemed so obvious that he would never hurt her, that everything he would ever do with her would be about making them both delirious with pleasure.

            There was one other thing he wanted, he realized; and he moved his arms around her waist and rolled them over, putting her on top of him.  She gasped and smiled as he rocked her back and forth with his hands until she picked up the motion herself.  Enrapt he watched her moving, the bliss in her half-closed eyes, the gentle sway of her hair and of her breasts.  As he’d hoped, the perfection of the moment was gradually painting over the one he wanted to erase.

            He twined his fingers into her hair and pulled her close.  “My love,” he whispered, and had to pause as he realized how hard it was to speak in the middle of such an intense sensation.  During the silence, she grazed across his neck and shoulder gently, and he gasped and found the other word he’d wanted.  “Harder.”  He seized her hips again to drive her against him, and she took his lower lip between her teeth.  Within moments they were moaning into each other’s mouths, overcome and exhausted.

            Philoméne curled against him and laid her head on his shoulder with a contented sigh.  They floated together in quiet for several minutes before she spoke.  “We’re free.”

            He chuckled softly and hugged her close.  “If you consider being the Arlessa of Amaranthine being free, then yes.”  She tsked at him, so after a light kiss to her forehead he added, “And the Blight is over.  It’s so amazing I haven’t really tried to think about it yet.  When do you want to leave Denerim?  Where would you like to go?”

            She smiled.  “Let’s not decide.  Let’s just see where we end up.”  She wriggled a little, adjusting so that her dark eyes could look into his.  “Oh, and I’m not going to be the Arlessa of Amaranthine.”

            “No?  Anora said you were.”

            Her eyes narrowed in mischief.  “And which of us do you believe?”

            He laughed.  “You.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Twist Shimmy for beta


End file.
